


For You, I'll Fly

by SylkTheSpood (OkamiWhitewings)



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Complete, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, Light Angst, Nightmares, Post-Canon, Season 3 Finale, implied Amaya/Janai, post-season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:20:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 51,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21793660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OkamiWhitewings/pseuds/SylkTheSpood
Summary: Rayla is really not good at "big feelings time" and she tries to deal with her fears alone, but Callum doesn't give up on her.(Season 3's finale + the aftermath, all from Rayla's perspective. Generous fluff and some angst for good measure. Canon-divergent from TTM.)This fic has a Janaya companion fic, "Kindle My Heart": https://archiveofourown.org/works/27670876/chapters/67713934 (I suggest you read FYIF first, as some plot points are skipped over in KMH)
Relationships: Callum/Rayla (The Dragon Prince)
Comments: 83
Kudos: 461





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First time posting something publicly, woo!  
> This started as a short oneshot to exercise myself in writing something that looked complete, pretty much a simple scene-by-scene retelling with some character study and extra scenes thrown in for flavor, but apparently I can't do anything "short" nor "simple" :')  
> (Sorry for grammar mistakes, English is not my native language)

Rayla was told to expect some sort signal from the battle below that would suggest a breach or retreat, but none ever came.

The height of the Storm Spire was too much for any sound to reach them from the battlefield, so she had hoped that the clouds would move just enough to give her an idea of what was going on down there, but they seemed perpetually attracted to the mountain. So she had waited with Bait and the restless Zym for the whole day, her nervous pacing around the room interrupted only by the little dragon’s decision to finally visit his mother, followed by her attempts to cheer him up after his unsuccessful efforts to wake her up.

She tried being optimistic for Zym, but each passing moment she felt more and more distressed and had to fight unwanted thoughts from entering her mind. She trusted the people who were down there to keep each other safe, but in order to keep her nerves steady she had to smother all thoughts about any of her family and friends, including _him_.

Then, as the sky tinted itself in warmer shades, Viren quietly appeared from the staircase on the other peak, the rhythmic metallic sound of his staff hitting the stone floor being the only clue that made the little group aware of his presence. Rayla, who was at the time petting the little prince’s head to lull him to sleep, had just enough time to grab him and Bait and hide into the Queen’s chamber without being seen.

As the steps got closer, she tried to shush Zym while her heart was beating furiously, almost louder than the steps. She had plenty of time to think of how to deal with whoever managed to reach the peak, expecting them to be tired from the climb or even wounded, but his steps were unnaturally confident and constant, so she instantly realized she could not to count on that advantage. She knew she couldn’t possibly have the upper hand in a one-on-one fight with him, not if in the past he had managed to easily defeat both her parents through magic. Her only hope left was to ambush him and neutralize him before he could do anything, so she put herself between Zym and the entrance, ready to strike the moment he entered.

The whole situation made no sense in her mind, what had happened down there? What could have led to Viren being up the Spire, alone? All of the worries that she ignored for the whole day waved at once against her mind, but she didn't allow herself to think about the worst. She had no time to do so as her duty called.

Viren appeared as an unimpressive man, tall and thin, dressed with just a white robe and with a huge eerie caterpillar coiled around his body, holding nothing but a metal staff used as a cane. If he was a regular human she could have taken care of him on her own without problems, but as he stepped into the chamber, all it took was one glance at his face to send a shiver down Rayla’s spine just before she darted forward, making her wonder in disgust how much dark magic he had to use to turn his body into such a corrupted husk.

The brief moment of shock somehow was enough for him to dodge her initial attack. Despite not expecting him to move so fast, she rebounded quickly and tried to land another hit, but her blade was met with a loud clang by the dark mage’s staff. She attempted a few more quick strikes that ended in the same way, then she had to jump away when he almost hit her head by waving his staff in her direction.

Rayla landed a few steps backwards and felt a knot forming in her stomach. She was fighting the same man that presumably killed her parents and she had just flunked her only chance of revenge. Her concentration started to break, but a scared whimper of Zym snapped her out of it and she focused on her true task: protect the young Prince, at all costs.

She located the scared Zym’s position with the corner of her eye and put herself next to him. Desperate to take advantage the first opening she could spot, she darted towards the man after he waved the staff again as a feint attack, but she had failed to notice the gleam of the spell he was silently casting. An instant later, said spell had materialized ice around her body, the impact and the sudden cold making her wail in pain. Her lower body and her arms were blocked by shards of ice in an unnatural position, all her efforts to free herself were vain.

At that point there was little she could do but keep trying as she helplessly watched Viren get close to the little dragon. She barely registered the disgusting things he was saying, the pulsating sound of her heart drowning them out while her whole being was focused on shattering the ice before the dark mage harmed Zym. However, with perfect timing, Bait jumped from behind the steps where he was hiding and flashed brighter than he ever did, blinding Viren momentarily.

“Zym! Run!” she shouted to the young dragon. He wasted no time, taking off as fast as he could and going through the entrance.

Rayla’s relief was short however, as Viren knocked out Bait with a swing of his staff that launched him against the wall, then turned towards her. Furiously, he started telling her that she hadn’t actually saved the dragon, but she tried putting on a brave face, while still trying to get out of the ice. Then, shaking a bag of coins he had taken out of his vest, he alluded to “adding her” to his “collection of Moonshadow elves”. For some reason, his words creeped her out more than she thought possible, a strong nausea taking over her as terrible thoughts started forming in her mind.

She remained stunned as he turned and left, wondering what on Xadia he could have done to her parents.

No. She couldn’t dwell on it, not yet.

Snapping back to her senses, she managed to break the shard holding her right arm with a yank full of resentment for the dark mage. The remaining ice was still completely solid, but there was no time to waste and she had to act fast. She barely noticed Bait moving near the wall as she recovered one of her blades and broke the bigger shard blocking her other arm in a few swings.

She switched to picking the ice that was blocking her legs, but her blade really was not the ideal tool for the job. She frantically started talking to herself, hanging on desperation not to give up, she just needed to free her front leg and she could have easily slip out. However, no matter how much force she put in it, the progress were little and painful.

As she had to stop to catch her breath, she heard a grumble in front of her. Looking up, she saw that Bait was coming towards her, carrying in his mouth a torch that fell when he hit the wall.

“Bait! You’re my hero!” Rayla exclaimed, grabbing the torch after he climbed the small hill of ice. She was surely going to give that grumpy glow toad as many treats as possible once this was all over.

_____

Rayla ran as fast as she could, her muscles still aching from the magical ice she had just escaped from, but she didn’t care. She didn’t even look up as she came out of the cave, what she was hearing was enough to know that Viren was doing something horrible. She skimmed up the staircase that led to the pinnacle, hoping the few minutes that had passed didn’t make her too late to save Zym.

She only looked up before reaching the pinnacle of the Spire and freezed in horror: Zym was struggling and crying in pain, caught in a tornado of dark magic originating from Viren.

In a burst of anger and protective instinct, she took out her swords and sprinted up the last ramp of stairs, this time truly going in for the kill, with no intent of mercy against such a particularly abhorrent human. She jumped, hoping to catch him by surprise as he was distracted with Zym, but at the last moment the caterpillar turned around and the man turned his arm towards her, effortlessly halting her ambush mid-air with a spell. The hit was strong enough to make her weapons slip from her grip, as well as blowing her back a few feet. She hit the ground right at the top of the stairs, followed by the sound of her weapons landing somewhere far behind her. Too far to reach.

“No!” she mentally shouted.

As she got up gasping for air, Zym let out a whimper of agony, calling for help with the last strength he had left.

“You’re too late” confidently asserted Viren, turning towards her in with a corrupted smile on his face “I’ve already won.”

As he focused on the dragonling again, Rayla almost succumbed to the man’s words. Was it truly over?

“No, no, no!” her mind screamed, scrambling for a solution.

She was unarmed and there was no way that someone else would come to Zym’s help before it was too late, not at the pinnacle of the Spire.

… The pinnacle of the Spire!

Her eyes darted to the edge of the platform they were standing on, quickly assessing the distance between it and the human. She knew what she had to do, her duty as the last Dragonguard being the only thing in her mind.

Before she could think about the consequences, a sudden rush of adrenaline gave her strength as she steadied on her feet. She took a breath, clenched her jaw and her legs started moving on their own.

“No!” she heard again after her first step, this time shouted in a very familiar voice. Her heart skipped an agonizing beat, but she didn’t allow herself to recognize it, her resolve filtering it out as nothing more than her mind playing tricks on her. She couldn’t allow any hesitation, in her desperate attempt to save Zym and everything she loved from the dark mage.

She didn’t allow herself to think while charging straight towards the man. She closed her eyes, opened her arms and lunged herself forward with all her strength and weight. The impact with the abdomen of the dark mage knocked the air out of her chest, but her legs kept going. She held onto his waist and continued running, successfully lifting him from the ground in his surprise. When the edge came close, she leapt without a second thought, still holding onto her enemy.

Only after her foot left the ground she allowed herself to breathe again, but as they plummeted downwards, the air she had just took in left her throat in a whimper, and the full awareness of what she had just done finally found its way into her thoughts.

The strength in her arms disappeared, her whole body going soft as blood flushed to her head, causing her vision to go blurry for a brief moment of panic. She heard the terrorized screams of the man as he shoved her away, before they were drowned by the drumming sound of her heartbeat in her ears along with the howling wind.

“No, no, no! Rayla!” the wind seemed to cry.

As she regained her vision, time seemed to slow down.

She perfectly knew her life was about to end, yet, instead of being taken over by the panic and fear she expected, a sudden sense of calmness and acceptance waved over those feelings. As air became harder to come by, she felt like she was slipping in a haze, like she was about to fall asleep, yet her mind started running faster than ever.

She was used to the sinking feeling of free fall, the weightlessness was exciting, almost intoxicating at times. She closed her eyes, as that familiar feeling hit her tenfold and her control on her thoughts started to soften.

“It’s not scary once you know how to land”, Runaan had told her when she was a kid, but... this time, she would not be prepared for that. It was okay though, he was not going to scold her for this, like he used to do when she was careless during training and accidentally hurt herself. She finally did her duty as the assassin he trained her to be. No matter what her actions and mistakes ruined before, her sacrifice was her redemption. Maybe he would be proud of her for it. Ethari and her parents too.

She opened her eyes briefly. She couldn’t tell how long it’d take to reach the ground, everything she could see were burnished shades in the dense clouds. The wind growled and stung her eyes and skin, her lungs were struggling to catch air, yet she didn’t register the pain nor the cold. It was like sinking in cold water, but despite her fear of water, she felt peaceful while drowning into the gorgeous ocean of clouds.

It was fine. She only did what had to be done for the world to have a chance of survival and peace. Come what may, she was fine with it.

Her heart was beating fast, every heartbeat feeling more intense, slow and lingering than the previous, like each knew they could have been the last.

It was, somehow, better than how she had expected her life would end. She had trained to be an assassin for her whole life and accepting she was 'already dead' was theoretically part of it, so she had thought about it at times. She had fully accepted her fate the day before, when she wanted to amend for her parents’ cowardness by sacrificing her own life. Even when she discovered they hadn’t run away like she had been told, it didn’t change the fact she was still ready to welcome what was to come. The only regret...

“Oh, Callum… I’m sorry...” she mouthed with what little air her lungs captured at that moment, almost sounding like a quiet sob.

Like struck by lightning, a sense of sadness and guilt engulfed her. She had kept him away from her thoughts so far, but she knew her mind would go back to him. To save Zym like this was her choice, probably the only choice she had left, but it was her decision to take it. He would…he would have supported that. He would have understood it… in time. He was strong and he would be fine even without her…

Yet her heart ached at how they left things. At how she was leaving him.

When she found him at the pinnacle that morning, Callum abruptly became quite somber and, for a moment, she believed he was going voice his feelings for her out loud, but they were interrupted by an overly cheery Soren that was calling them for the battle meeting.

Elves put actions above words, so all she needed to know was already clear the moment he kissed her in the Midnight Desert, in every time he looked her in the eyes. However, in the weeks she spent with him, she came to understand that giving things a proper name was a very important thing for humans. Not that she didn’t want to say those words to him, it was natural she would want to say them, but she was particularly bad at “big feelings time”. The only time she almost said those words was when she first realized how important he was for her, as she was helplessly rambling in a desperate attempt to wake him up when he was unconscious. After all they had been through, it should have been easy to just say those words, yet whenever they were alone she always felt them shy away and freeze in her heart. She cowered at her own feelings and she was ashamed of it.

And the cruel irony was that, deep down, despite having sarcastically joked about it with Callum and having been the one who gave the first kiss, part of her still hadn’t accepted the fact that she held such dear feelings for a human. She knew her sentiments were real, but she had no idea about what reaction they would get from everyone else. No one had heard of a relationship like theirs in centuries, everyone ignored the topic all together and she had never really questioned something that couldn’t possibly happen, it felt like a scandalous profanity destined to be hidden forever from the world. In the past days, she had fought those thoughts off whenever they found her in a moment of calm or, when she couldn’t do it on her own, one look at Callum was enough to quiet the storm in her mind. It should have been easier, and yet...

After the battle meeting was over, it took a couple of round trips of the few Twin-Tailed Inferno-Tooth Tigers brought by the Sunfire soldiers to empty the room it had taken place in. After she announced she was staying there to protect Zym and Janai appointed her as the last Dragonguard (with Bait claiming the title as well shortly after), Callum insisted on being the last one to leave for the battlefield, pretending to show her something important in his sketchbook, but really just wanting to spend the precious time they had left together sitting close to her.  
Unfortunately, his aunt Amaya decided to remain as well and wait for Janai to come get them both, much to their barely concealed disappointment, while also taking the chance to lighten the mood by giving Rayla a few suggestions on fighting techniques specific to possible human intruders, which Callum refused to fully interpret at times. When Amaya started walking towards the entrance after they all saw the shadow of Janai’s mount passing above the bridge, he turned to Rayla and surprised her with a quick kiss on her lips, gently squeezing her hand before getting up.

“I’ll come back here for you as soon as possible.” Callum said quietly, his voice vibrating between hundreds of emotions. She didn’t respond and simply looked at him walk away, even if her heart begged her to say something, anything. Then, one last smile and he was gone.

And soon she was going to be gone as well, for good, without seeing him again.

Implying the worst didn’t really happen down there and he was still alive.

The wave of thoughts and emotions had made her curl up slightly, throwing her balance off and making her spin in her fall. As she felt the force of the air on her back, she opened her eyes again and looked up. It took her a second to realize she was seeing Callum far away above her. There was no way that was him, it had to be just a hallucination, he was still at the bottom of the Spire, fighting an army of sun-cursed monsters. That’s why he hadn’t come back to her yet. Or... maybe she was already dead and this is what the afterlife had to offer her.

She didn’t care though, she was seeing him again in her last moments. All the thoughts vanished from her head, leaving space only for the love she felt for him. Her arm moved instinctively towards him, in vain hope of touching him again as he seemed to disappear in the clouds.

“No…” she could only think, as tears clouded her eyes.

As the distance grew larger, she saw a faint light coming from above, his faraway shape morphing into something different. She closed her eyes, blaming her tears for it.

She reopened them just in time to see a brown and red blur come fast at her, colliding into her arms and closing around her, spinning around a few times. Paired with sudden increase in speed, it knocked her out of her daze and she instinctively embraced the shape, gasping for air.

“Got you!” exclaimed the familiar voice she never thought she would hear again.

Rayla’s heart skipped a beat as her mind caught up with what just happened, slightly slipping as they started moving upwards, ending up dangling from her rescuer’s neck.

When she opened her eyes, she saw Callum’s face. He was focusing on a point in front of him, then he looked down at her, his hair moving like flame in the golden sun.

“Am I…?” she thought, daring to look down for a second to confirm that yes, she was still in the air and the ground was nowhere to be seen. She spotted Viren and his creepy caterpillar as they disappeared into the clouds, then quickly turned back to her savior.

“Callum! But how did you-?” she asked, struggling to speak in her amazement and joy, still out of breath from before. She recognized the spell Ibis had used to grow wings, yet Callum never mentioned he ever learned it.

“Because I love you, Rayla!” he euphorically exclaimed, “I really do!” he said a bit softer while getting closer, his smile and eyes conveying relief and pure adoration.

The warmth of those words melted the insecurities and fears in her heart completely, her disbelief melting in a smile. Despite the precariousness of the situation, she had never felt safer.

“I love you too, Callum.” she replied without hesitation, her eyes lost in his, each word feeling like a conquer. A quick look at his lips and, next thing she knew, she was pulling herself up a bit and kissing him. Lost completely in him, she barely noticed him flapping his wings to gain further altitude, however taking the chance of embracing him closer and run her fingers through his hair.

As they were flying higher, she felt her heart soaring as high as the moon.


	2. Chapter 2

Callum broke the kiss first, placing another quick kiss on Rayla’s lips before murmuring into her ear, “Hold on, I’m gonna try to land”. They had ended up flying quite a bit above the Storm Spire, while they were distracted.

Brought back to reality, she held onto his shoulders as tightly as she could without hindering his sight and movements, blushing slightly both for their physical closeness and her carelessness.

He tried multiple times to align himself to the Spire's floor. Initially she figured it was due to her added weight not being of any help, but, given his mumbling and groans, she quickly realized he really had no precise idea of what to do in order to land. She smirked and embraced him a little tighter. He might have been a talented mage and, at this point, undisputedly her hero who earned all her trust, but he was still the goofy human she had been traveling for weeks with. She sighed, now smiling wholeheartedly, knowing that when they were finally gonna land she’d have to save the day, as she did many times before.

However, as they were circling around the pinnacle one last time to lower themselves to the cave level to have a bigger landing space, she noticed that her limbs had started trembling slightly. She tried not to think, focusing on keeping herself steady when he started flapping his wings to lower themselves as gently as possible. “It’s just the cold wind, I’m just cold” she kept repeating in her head. Yet, by the time they were close to the decorated floor in front of the cave, she almost couldn’t hold on anymore because to how much she was shaking.

Despite his efforts, the landing was, unsurprisingly, not ideal. He tried his best to land completely, but due not being used to his wings’ span, he miscalculated the last flap and hurried to do another as their feet touched the ground with way more momentum than he expected, losing balance and sort of flinging himself forward. In spite her situation, Rayla tried to ease the landing and counterbalance him, but as soon as she touched the ground and tried to apply force with her legs, a sudden jolt of gut-wrenching discomfort rushed through her body, making her vision go blurry and her knees give in completely.

“Rayla!” cried out Callum, placing his wing on her shoulder as he sat up. “I-I’m so sorry, I thought I had it, I- wait, why are you shaking?”

The fall wasn’t that rough, but as he was falling forward he had managed to twist his body fast enough not to fall on her, protecting her torso with his wings as he fell mostly on his back. She opened her eyes, her head resting on Callum’s other wing, but didn’t look at him.

“Rayla, are you okay?!” he pressed, visibly worried by her pained expression.

“W-why did you... jump after... me?” she said weakly, trying to sit up despite her body’s trembling like a leaf, her eyes closed as her vision was still slightly blurry. She recognized why she was feeling like this, but refused to fully realize it in front of him and tried to calm herself.

Callum was quick to help her up, keeping a wing on her back to support her. “I… I had to...” he meekly said after a moment of hesitation, quickly catching the reason of the note of disapproval and sadness in her voice.

She almost turned to look at him, then her brow furrowed and she looked away. Of course he had to, he wanted her to be fine, he cared for her, he _loved_ her, but...

“And…” she breathed in, “You never did this spell before, did you?” she said, her voice breaking and quivering as she felt a lump growing in her throat. Through the amassing tears, she looked at his wing still placed on her arm. The feathers were caressing and softly tickling her skin, which at that moment felt like small electric shocks, akin to what she had experienced during the landing. Her eyes followed the flow of the plumes, locking on a broken feather that was lying close to her foot, likely as result of the rough landing. Her hands clutched despite the discomfort as her mind went places she should have avoided.

“Yes, no, I-I mean, I tried this morning! I saw Ibis do it a-and I knew how to do it!” he started mumbling defensively. “But… You’re right, I… This is the first time it worked...” he concluded, sighing and looking down.

For a few seconds they remained there, physically close yet separated by a heavy silence, inundated by the intensity of what they both had just faced and the immense risks they each took without a second thought.

One tear dropped on Rayla’s leg.

He noticed it. “But you’re safe n-” Callum tried to rebut, but was cut short when Rayla turned and hugged him so fast he almost fell backwards. She dug her forehead in the nook of his neck, the base of one of her horn pushing against his cheek for a second like to shut him up.

“Never. Do. That. Again.” she spelled, her voice in even worse condition than before, almost sounding like she was sobbing. Her fingers gripped his shirt as she started trembling again, then she dug her face in his scarf.

After a moment of silence, Callum responded with the best embrace he could do with his wings, covering most of her body with them and placing first his lips then his cheek on her hair.

“I love you.” he whispered into her ear, a raw note in his voice adding an implicit “I will do it for you as long as I breathe.”

It infuriated her, but all she managed to do was hold onto him harder and dig her fingers further into his shirt and skin, with the partial intent to hurt him a bit to convey her objection. Her only thoughts were a never-ending series of endearing insults towards him.

His only response was to embrace her tighter, as she tried to mask her sobbing.

Anticipated only by one faraway yelp, a sudden weight landed on them, scaring them.

“Zym!” shouted Callum, happy to see him yet slightly annoyed at him for the scare and the accidental headbutt received.

Rayla would have remained in that cathartic moment for a while longer, but she couldn’t help feeling overjoyed as the little dragon crawled from her shoulders to her arms, yelping and whimpering as he shared the same emotion.

“You’re okay!” she sobbed as the dragonling zappy-kissed her tears away. He then rubbed his head on her face and did his best to hug her, making a purring sound when she hugged him back.

When she opened her eyes, she found Callum staring at her with an expression so sweet and full of love and pride that she forgot about all the turmoil from a minute before, blushing and smiling back. She had succeeded in her role as Dragonguard.

Slightly overwhelmed, one last half-sob half-laugh accompanied a stray tear and she felt on her cheek another zappy-kiss from Zym, who affectionately growled at her like to say “No more tears”. She chuckled, followed by Callum.

“I’m okay too, don’t worry.” she softly said while caressing the little dragon’s head. She raised her head and smiled again, “This dumb, dumb human saved me.”

Almost on cue, a loud grumble came from the entrance of the cave. “And Bait did too,” she added with a slight eye-roll, as the glowtoad came towards them, standing as straight as he could on his legs, like he was triumphantly parading.

A series of flapping sounds getting closer interrupted their moment of bliss.

As they turned towards the cliff, they saw two flying figures coming over the border from below. They recognized the first one as Janai’s Twin-Tailed Inferno-Tooth Tiger, while the other was Ibis. The latter landed close to them, while the bigger creature landed behind them.

“Is the Prince safe?” he fretted, “Are you all o- OH” he stopped, astonished, when his eyes focused on Callum and his wings.

“Yeah, uh, I-I can expla-” Callum tried to apologetically say, before his aunt suddenly crouched near him to bear-hug him from behind, choking his words as she lifted the poor human prince up. The metallic noise of Amaya’s armor startled both Zym and Rayla, making her fall on her back as the little dragon climbed over her in an attempt to escape the perceived threat.

When she sat back up, Rayla found Amaya holding her hand out for her, with a big kind smile on her face. Rayla still didn’t truly feel at ease with her due to their first encounter, even after Callum had told his aunt that she posed no threat, but she decided to take her hand after a moment of hesitation. Big mistake, as she got pulled up directly into a bear-hug of her own by the woman. “Oh well,” she thought as she gasped for air after being let go, wobbling a bit on her still unsure feet, “I guess this means she doesn’t hate me anymore.”

Janai had stepped closer during the humiliating scene, her usual dignified stance being ruined only by a slight slouch and the battle marks on her armor. “What happened here? Did the dark mage cause troubles?” she said, giving a glance at Callum who was asking the still-slightly confused Ibis how to revert the spell.

The memories from her encounter with Viren flooded her, making her whole body tense up. “Y-yes, he…” she stopped and looked away, hesitating as she tried to find the right words. Zym, who was tormenting the poor Bait until a few seconds before, stared at her.

Amaya put her hand on Rayla’s shoulder, firm yet reassuring, and smiled in an understanding way.

Rayla took a deep breath and sighed. “He… he tried to capture Zym. I was… I wasn’t able to defeat him at first, but… Bait and I managed to make Zym escape.” she said with an insecure voice. “Viren followed him to the” -she gulped- “pinnacle and he almost got Zym, so I... I-”

“Rayla did what she had to do to stop him.” firmly said Callum, stepping closer. He put his again regular human hand on her other shoulder and looked her in the eyes, “What’s important is that Viren fell down the Storm Spire and that we’re all okay.” he concluded. He then signed something, which he later said was “Not now, touchy subject, we’ll talk later”.

Rayla felt extremely grateful. She still needed time to process everything that happened and she could still feel the lump in her throat from before.

Janai and Amaya looked at each other, their expressions being a mix of puzzled and worried, then the Sunfire elf asked Ibis to go tell the others to look for the dark mage’s body.

“ _We came up here right away when Ezran sensed something was wrong_ ,“ Amaya explained as Callum interpreted her signs for Rayla, “ _but I think we missed Viren’s... fall._ ”

Rayla’s ears perked up. “How did the battle go? Is Ezran okay? We won, right?” she blurted out, looking first at the two women in front of her and then towards Callum.

“Why? Did you doubt that we could win?” Janai boasted with a smirk.

Amaya smirked back as she bumped elbows with her, her look being a mix of reprimand and flirty playfulness, then proceeded to explain what happened.

Rayla felt the tension leave her body as the woman described the battle, amusedly sneering at Callum every time he added his own commentary as he interpreted.

They had somehow succeeded and she realized how thankful she was that she could still hear Callum’s voice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok I lied, this will be longer than 4 chapters oops ^^;  
> Hopefully I'll be able to post the 3rd one soon!


	3. Chapter 3

The room inside the cave had slowly filled with more and more people as the moon claimed the night sky. Every person who wasn’t wounded or forced to remain at the makeshift camp near at the base of the Storm Spire had gathered in the cave to discuss what to do next.

Rayla wanted some time alone with Callum or at the very least to rest, but she quickly gave up on it the moment people started to arrive.

The first to reach the peak on top of a dragon were Corvus and Gren with updates from the battlefield: the initial search for Viren’s body was unfruitful.

The reinforcements sent by Ezran had been intercepted by Ibis halfway up the Spire and they all had gone directly in search of Viren around the base of the mountain and in its proximity. Despite having heard his screams and having seen roughly where he landed, not even those on the ground at the moment of his fall had any luck in finding him. It was almost as if he disappeared completely.

Gren assured everyone present that they were going to keep searching first thing in the morning, as the darkness made it harder to proceed thoroughly and they needed people to take care of the wounded soldiers of all factions as well.

After being quiet during Gren’s report, Corvus mentioned that Claudia had disappeared completely when Ezran gave the alarm. He did find her initial tracks, but she had been smart and covered them before anyone got to her. He then explained what happened with the illusion of Viren and what Soren had done in order to save Ezran.

Rayla sensed Callum tensing up near her. His expression was indecipherable and he simply looked at the ground during the whole time Corvus spoke, but she could tell he was deeply worried for his childhood friends, even for Claudia. She wanted to hug him, but as dragons loaded with other humans arrived at the peak, she shied away from the idea, limiting herself to simply putting her hand on his shoulder for a few seconds. After a long sigh, he smiled at her with a sad yet thankful look, then went back to his usual self before turning to answer to a long-haired woman who had started calling his name while still on top of a dragon.

Thankfully she and those with her seemed to calm Callum immediately, even as he had to explain over and over again the brief version of what happened, saving her the pain of dealing with that without even asking her. She also felt better when Amaya and Janai returned her weapons to her, after they had gone to check the pinnacle to see if something had been left up there.

Rayla still didn’t like humans in general that much, mainly due to their being so loud and all-in-your-face with hugs and physical contact, but the atmosphere lightened up further as more people showed up. All of the humans that spoke with Callum and her were nicer to her than she expected and, admittedly, the -famous- jelly tarts one of those men offered her did help her mood as well in the end.

Earlier Rayla was surprised to learn that a whole human kingdom’s army came to aid the Sunfire elves in the direst moment of the battle, turning its tide completely. Queen Aanya, who couldn’t have been much older than Ezran, had answered the call for help of the defectors from the Katolian army. Callum had said she was the one who had saved him from the Sun-cursed Prince Kasef, killing him with an amazing display of her archery skills.

When the young Queen entered the cave unannounced, Callum and Rayla were sitting on the steps in the room and he was quietly explaining to Rayla who the people surrounding them were, while Zym was taking a nap on Rayla’s lap. Rayla was very tired and the crowd made her quite anxious, but Callum’s voice and the dragonling’s purring warmth made her feel quiet and safe, like she was in a bubble.

All noise soothed as every human present hurried to salute Queen Aanya by bowing their heads with a hand on their chest, followed by some of the elves awkwardly imitating them. Rayla and Callum hurried to get up and do the same, much to the disappointment of Zym who had to be placed on the cold stone floor.

The Queen exchanged a few words with one of her soldiers, then went straight for where Callum and Rayla were standing. Despite the sympathy Rayla felt for the young Queen, she felt the impelling urge to physically escape the conversation, but somehow Callum anticipated her attempt by holding onto her vest. She mentally cursed him for it as Aanya approached, then tried to look collected.

“Greetings,” the young Queen said with a kind smile, “I suppose you two are Prince Callum and Rayla, the Moonshadow elf who protected the young Dragon Prince, am I correct?”. Her tone was too solemn for a child of her age, yet there was a note of childlike curiosity and purity that put Rayla at ease. She couldn’t help but compare her to Ezran, given their similar position.

“I-, w-, y-yes, it’s us, your Majesty.” replied Callum, struggling to find composure despite his upbringing as a prince.

“I want to thank you both for your actions today. I hope they’ll help put an end to this, as well as possibly forge a future alliance between our races.” she said, looking at both of them and then at Zym, who was shyly hiding behind Rayla’s legs. She smiled at the little dragon, who inquisitively whimpered.

“I’m sure of it, your Grace. Your participation in today’s battle meant salvation for Xadia, it won’t be easily forgotten.” said Rayla, saving the distressed Callum from having to reply again.

“I’m glad you think so. I have to confer with the rest of your people now, before I go back to my troops, but I hope I’ll be able to converse with you both again sometimes soon.” Aanya excused herself, then walked towards Janai and Ibis.

When she was far enough, Callum turned towards Rayla. “How does it come so natural to you?!” he sneered, squinting at her.

“It doesn’t.” she sighed, slouching her back.

She was wishing so hard for some time alone with Callum, she was still on edge about all that happened and the tiredness was starting to get to her. Pretending everything was perfectly fine was asking a bit too much of her, but she didn’t want to ruin the celebratory mood of anyone with her own problems. Zym rubbed his head on her leg, almost as if he knew what stirred in her mind.

The last to arrive were Ezran and Soren, when the night was almost over. They had remained so long at the base of the Storm Spire because the young King insisted on visiting the surviving Sun-cursed Katolian soldiers to make sure they were okay.

When they stepped into the cave, everyone went quiet again. Ezran didn’t look happy, but as he looked at the faces of those who turned to him, his expression mellowed in a timid smile. Soren, on the other hand, looked impassible, his eyes fixated on him and his hand ready near his sword.

The young King sighed before stepping forward. Everyone saluted him like they did with Queen Aanya a while earlier, moving aside to let him pass. He stopped only to exchange the greeting of the Queen, then kept walking towards his friends, concluding with a little sprint when Zym ran towards him. After hugging the little dragon, he ran to hug Callum and Rayla. She was so glad he was okay.

“I just can’t believe it! Everything we’ve been through together, traveling across the world, coming here to Xadia… We did it!” Ezran exclaimed, picking up and hugging Bait.

“We changed things, we made a difference!” Rayla said, her eyes meeting Callum’s for a moment.

“Just the four of us!” Callum stated pridefully before being interrupted by an offended growl of Zym and correcting himself to “five of us”.

“ _Hey!_ ” said Gren, translating Amaya, “ _Just the five of you, uh?_ ” she finished, shaking her head with a sly smile. Most of their friends had come closer and were looking at them, almost everyone sharing the same smug look.

“Uh, I mean, ALL of us!” Callum apologized, laughing. Rayla couldn’t help but be amazed at how much of a dork he could be at times.

As they were starting to laugh, a sudden tremor took over the Storm Spire, accompanied a deep roaring sound echoing through the cave.

After a moment of shock, Zym suddenly started running towards the Queen’s chamber. Rayla instinctively followed him right away. Could it be…?

When Rayla crossed the entrance to the dragon Queen’s chamber, she immediately noticed the dragoness' massive wings and tail move. Zym, who standing was at the top of the stairs, looked back at her for a moment, a timid look in his eyes.

Rayla felt Callum’s touch on her elbow. Everyone in the room had followed her and Zym, ammassing in the tunnel connecting the two rooms.

She exchanged a look with Callum. “Let’s go, Zym.” she encouraged the dragonling, taking one step closer to him before he found the courage to walk down the stairs. Rayla heard the steps of a few people behind them, but her eyes -like everyone else’s- were fixated on the Dragon Queen.

They had just reached the bottom of the stairs when Zym stopped again, waiting for his mother to wake up.

When the dragoness finally opened her eyes, she immediately noticed she wasn’t alone. She rose with grace unexpected from such a colossal creature, her deep blue scales and white mane shining in the newly-arrived sunrise’s light. As she stretched her wings, the thunder-like veins of their membrane shimmered like electricity. Everyone was in complete awe at the sight of her beauty.

A whimper coming from Zym shook her out of her drowsiness, her eyes looking for the source of the sound as the little dragon landed in front of her. She lowered her head to take a better look at him, then, when he rubbed his face against her muzzle, she eagerly reciprocated.

Rayla caught one tear before it ran down her cheek. They truly had completed their mission, their little dragonling had finally rejoined his remaining family.

Callum noticed Rayla’s movements and looked her in the eyes. She slightly blushed as his face softened in a loving prideful smile.

“Oh… Is this… a dream?” asked Zubeia, looking first at her baby and then at the group in front of her as it stepped closer. Her deep voice barely masked how moved she was, each word bursting in amazement and joy.

Rayla and Callum looked at each other for a moment. Rayla didn’t need him to talk to understand what his smile meant. Their hands met on their own and their fingers intertwined. They pulled each other close and shared a shameless tender smile, then smiled unapologetically to the Queen.

Rayla’s anxieties weren’t gone, she still feared what might come for them in the future, but, right then, she didn’t care. Maybe it was the extreme tiredness, maybe it was all she had been through that day, but she went for it. If Callum didn’t want to hide their bond that went deeper than simple friendship, then might as well be prideful of it in front of the Dragon Queen.

When the dragoness gasped in disbelief, Rayla’s heart’s quietly quivered for a moment, but when her expression softened into a warm and surprised smile, it calmed and then started beating proudly.

The Queen’s eyes scoured the group further. “I can’t believe it!” she exclaimed, “Elves and humans are here?! And they brought back my baby... my love... and my hope!” she continued, her voice softening in gratitude at each word.

Zubeia’s smile was the most radiant thing that morning, Rayla’s following close as she felt like she and Callum finally could hope in happiness as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wish I had more time to write, but commissions' deadlines are taking over my days and making this chapter was a bit hard.  
> Luckily I already have another chapter that's almost complete, so the wait shouldn't be too long for the next one.  
> Given my current plot notes, I'm thinking this fic will be around 7-8 chapters, IF I don't get any extra ideas for more lol. There'll also be a companion Amaya/Janai fic because I had too many ideas tied to them that couldn't fit in this fic, so probably it'll be done and posted after this one is complete.
> 
> (ALSO also go check my friend's [TDP AMV](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQtMGfKLQsI), she's been really supportive while I was writing this fic and her WIPs of it gave me strenght to keep writing ahah)


	4. Chapter 4

Rayla was running up the stairs leading to the pinnacle. Above the sound of her frantic footsteps and the distant sound of battle, she could clearly hear Zym’s cries of pain and the maniacal laugh of Viren, but the clouds were so dense she couldn’t see more than a few steps ahead, her cold sweat mixing with the condense on her body.

After what seemed an eternity of escalating anxiety, she arrived at the pinnacle. She couldn’t see much, but as the cloud dissipated slightly, she spotted the dark mage's silhouette beginning to glow, accompanied by a similarly glowy amorphic figure next to him.

“You’re too late.” asserted Viren, turning towards her, his corrupted smile worse than she remembered. “I’ve already won.”

She looked down. A bloodcurdling scream left her throat as she saw the lifeless body of the Dragon Prince lying on the ground under the man’s foot. Tears flowed out of her eyes and she crumbled to the floor, the pain in her chest pulsating with every heartbeat. She had failed.

“And now, it’s your turn.” the man said in a repulsive tone, crushing the dragon’s body into dust before stepping closer to her, his steps sounding like coins being tossed on the ground as he started laughing again.

Rayla barely had the strength to look up. The metallic rattling was deafening and everything was bright and dark at the same time, then pain became the only thing she perceived.

She felt the sinking feeling of freefall again. She opened her eyes, but this time she felt no peace. Every second was agonizing panic, her screams being drowned in the wind so fast she couldn’t even hear them. She was falling in a never-ending stream of dark thunderous clouds and, deep inside, she knew no one was coming to save her.

In her desperation, she started hoping the ground would come soon to end her suffering, but, when it did, she saw him.

The last thing she did before hitting the ground was scream his name, broken by what she had seen.

A flash.

Pain.

Then everything went dark.

_____

Rayla’s body convulsively moved on its own, waking her up as she faintly whimpered.

She stared blankly at the ceiling of the barely lit room she was in. She was struggling to breathe and her heart was racing so fast it hurt, its echo pounding in her ears. Her whole body was shaking, cold sweat drenched her hair and clothes, as well as the bedsheets. She gripped the cloth in her hands, trying to steady herself. Every time she blinked, she was reminded of the nightmare she just had.

But... it was just a nightmare.

She was alive.

The horrible image flashed in her mind again, challenging her brief respite with a new wave of panic, shivers and nausea. She hastily sat up on her bed, like trying to shake it off. She looked around and sighed in relief: he was alive, too.

Callum was peacefully sleeping on a mat near her own, turned towards her. His breath was steady and slow, his hair ruffled by the pillow and his hand near his chin. That morning they had fallen asleep holding hands, but he probably retreated his hand under the blanket after she likely started tossing and turning, given the sorry state of her own bed.

She stared at him for a while, subconsciously synchronizing her breath with his, calming down in the process.

She looked up and saw Ezran’s back slowly moving up and down as he breathed. He shared the only bed in the room with Bait and, behind it, she could see Soren’s sprawled boots partially covered by a blanket. She envied them all because they seemed to be sleeping so peacefully, but she was also grateful she hadn’t woken anyone up. Probably Soren’s slight snore covered whatever noise she had made.

Rayla passed a hand on her face, squeezing her eyes when she noticed her cheeks were wet from tears. She must have cried in her sleep, fantastic.

Still lightly shivering and with her mind completely scrambled, there was no way she could sleep again. Her body felt sore and heavy from tiredness, likely due to the accumulated fatigue of the previous month that had finally caught up to her, yet closing her eyes still gave her images of the nightmare, each of them crushing her stomach with a sense of nausea that made her feel extremely uneasy.

She looked out of the small window and noticed there was still lots of light outside, so she decided to go out for some fresh air.

She quietly got up and sneaked out of the room, stopping briefly only to look at Callum for another moment, making sure he was really asleep... and that he was really there.

For a moment she considered waking him up so that they could finally talk alone, but she shook her head at the thought of disturbing his very well-deserved rest. She sighed and left, leaving the door ajar not to make any sound.

Queen Zubeia had become very weak during the months she passed mourning for the death of her mate and the loss of their egg, so, despite her recent long slumber and the joy of finding out her baby was alive, she still needed to rest in order to regain her health.

After her awakening, she asked how Azymondias’s egg survived and how he was brought back to her. Before anyone else could muster up the courage to speak, Ezran had stepped forward. Zym, who was flying above the group, landed near the young King, rubbing his head on his arm. Zubeia looked intrigued and somewhat amused at how friendly her baby was with the young human.

As Ezran started narrating what happened, she laid herself down again, resting her head on a patch of grass.

Rayla and Callum, whose hands had found each other again during the explanation, shared the tension whenever the young King said things that could have provoked a reaction in the Queen, like the fact that he was the son and heir to the throne of the man who killed her beloved Avizandum. However, despite her declared and justified hatred of humans, she remained calm and collected through it all, only her eyes conveying the emotions she kept hidden. Zym bounced back from his mother to his friends a few times, which helped dissolve the uneasiness of the situation.

After Ezran was done, Zubeia’s head rose again over the small group. She thanked him for his sincerity and all he and the others had done. She even expressed remorse for what she had asked the Moonshadow elves to do and the consequences it had brought, directly apologizing for it not only to the young King and Prince, but also to Rayla for being part of that murderous mission and unjustifiably blaming her parents for what she thought was desertion. She then thanked all the people present for seeing further than her blinding sorrow allowed her to do, ensuring she’d do her best to make things right once she was able to resume her role as Dragon Queen.

She appeared very tired when she called on Ibis and told him that she was giving permission to those who aided Azymondias to use the Dragonguard’s quarters to rest. She then desired then to be left alone with her son, so that they could both rest.

By using a particular rune on one of the hall’s walls, a hidden passage appeared. The stairs gently spiraled down, opening in various chambers magically carved out of the mountain itself.

It wasn’t anything special, but overall it felt very welcoming and cozy. They passed first by the armory, then by the common rooms and finally they got to the last corridor at the bottom, which led to 8 separated simple bedrooms, once belonging to the Dragonguard.

Ibis explained that when he got there to aid Queen Zubeia, the whole place seemed like it had been sacked and partially burned, likely at the hands of the dark mage. Not much of value was left when he tried to clean up the place, pretty much everything that wasn’t taken away was directly smashed on the spot or thrown in what seemed to have been a short-lived fire. Only a few trinkets and artifacts remained hidden from his greed, likely by pure chance, otherwise the place had only basic living tools and supplies left intact.

The bedrooms weren’t exactly big and only had one bed each, but a few people could fit in them, so they made do, also occupying all the other rooms available as a temporary dormitory. Even if the accommodations weren’t ideal, everyone could agree that it was surely better than sleeping outside at such an altitude or going back down to the burned battleground. Queen Aanya and her troops kindly refused to take up space since they had already set up camp near the base, rather they even sent up the Spire some of their spare mats and supplies, as well as offering to take into their camp those who were still at ground level, be them human or elves.

Rayla initially felt anxious about being in the place where her parents lived, but the relative coziness of the place quickly got her to the point where she was almost too tired to mentally register what was happening.

She ended up in Ezran’s room with Soren and Callum, practically dragged around by the latter after someone had shoved a mat, a pillow and some folded blankets in her arms. They all had been awake for more than a day at that point, so they went to sleep immediately after setting their bed up. Soren did not even bother with removing his armor before noisily diving onto his poorly-made bed, claiming that he’d be ready to protect Ezran if anything happened when the kid pointed it out.

Rayla, who at that point was barely awake, vividly remembered blushing when Callum tucked her in before getting under his blanket. When he finally closed his eyes, she shyly slid her hand towards him, gripping his blanket for a moment before his hand linked with hers, making her blush again.

As she was falling asleep next to Callum, holding his hand on the chill stone floor, she could vaguely hear in the next room a flustered Janai complain with a human about the arrangement of the rooms. The last thing she remembered was contently squeezing Callum’s hand and his snickering smile after the human replied to Janai, but she didn’t catch his words before drifting into unconsciousness.

Rayla kept herself focused on those thoughts as she made her way out of the Dragonguard’s quarters, moving as quietly as her sore tired body let her in order not to wake up the dozens of people sleeping in the rooms along the way.

When she passed by a basin of water that Ibis had placed near the entrance of the armory that morning, she quickly scooped up some water in her cupped hands, took a sip and splashed her face to wake herself up completely. The light was dim, but even then she could see in her reflection that she was a mess, though she hardly had the energies to care about it at that point, superficially combing her hair with her fingers just enough to not have it be tangled with her horns.

When she reached the hall, Rayla turned towards the Queen’s chamber, listening to her slow and constant breath for a few seconds. She sighed again, thankful for the reminder that they had indeed succeeded the day before, but also relieved that she managed to get out of the cave without meeting anyone. She really wanted to be alone and probably would have killed anyone who dared getting too close to her or being too cheery in her presence.

As she stepped out of the cave, the chilly air made a shiver run down her spine, her wet face and clothes making it worse, but it did make her feel a bit better overall. She had no real idea of how much time she’d been out, but it surely was somewhere in the early afternoon. She felt relieved, at that time probably everyone was either still sleeping or busy in the search for Viren.

The thought of that man was enough to make another set of awful images flash in her head and she instinctively looked for some place to escape to. She started moving towards the pinnacle, but as she put her foot on the first step, something inside her forcibly stopped her from going up there.

After a moment of concerned hesitation, she shrugged it off. Of course, she wanted to clear her mind and it would have been quite ironic if she went precisely where her bad dream had taken place. Silly of her to think that it would have been a good idea.

She looked around and stared at the bridge for a while, evaluating the idea of sitting on the steps on the other mountain peak. That satisfyingly made sense, after all thanks to the dragons being so kind and willing to move people up and down the Spire, no one passed by there. Maybe, with a little bit of luck, she could even take the nap her body begged for.

Rayla was feeling already better thanks to the perspective of more rest ahead of her, but as she placed a foot on the bridge, her whole body froze again along with her breath. Her stomach compressed like it had just been punched, briefly making her glad she hadn’t eaten anything since the day before. She took a step back, wobbling slightly on her legs, confused.

Slowly, she realized that the cause of such reaction were the slight movements of the bridge and that what she was feeling was very similar to what she had felt during the fall in her nightmare.

“Am I… NO.” she thought, before closing her eyes and running forward in a defiant action against her own mind, like she was leaving any concern physically behind herself. The bridge was sturdy and barely moved, but even the light oscillation was strong enough to put each of her steps just enough off-axis to make her almost wince.

By the time she was at the other end of the bridge, her heart was pounding fast in her ears yet again and her muscles were burning. She leaned on the stone wall for a moment, cold air piercing her lungs due to her accelerated breathing. In retrospect, that wasn’t a good idea: charging ahead like that reminded her of what she did the day before at the pinnacle, which was something she still hadn’t had the chance to properly process.

Rayla took a deep breath and steadied herself. She couldn’t let that break her, after all everything turned out okay, an enormous weight was lifted from her shoulders and she was perfectly fine aside from the expected tiredness. Her mind was simply playing childish tricks on her, like nightmares and whatever had just happened, likely due to the lack of sleep. Probably it had been Soren’s snoring that troubled her sleep, so she was going to take revenge on him for it the next time she found him sleeping.

Rayla strutted down a couple of ramps, mentally repeating to herself that she would kinda like to go all the way down, maybe even share a fun conversation and a jelly tart with the young human Queen, but her legs soon started shaking again as she felt anguish envelop her again.

Panicking at the lack of control she had on her body, she tried to repeat the calming mantras Moonshadow assassins are taught, but they only made things worse, reminding her of her family and all she had left behind due to being ghosted, something she would eventually have to face since her mission was complete.

Suddenly her legs felt too weak to continue or go back, so she stopped at the first spot she found where she could sit. She wasn’t even thinking about the things that made her feel bad, but she kept feeling worse and worse as the mental pressure kept rising.

Her breathing became increasingly heavy and difficult, just like when she and the others climbed the Storm Spire for the first time, but not due to the thin air. She felt dizzy and numb, trembling like a leaf despite the sun warming that side of the spire.

Trying to hold herself together and fight the chills that ran across her body, Rayla put her hood on and curled up with her back against the wall, hugging her legs as tears started gathering in her eyes. She tried to put up a fight with them, but they easily won against the tired distressed elf.

Once the first tear went down, she gave in completely, her defenses breaking down one by one under the barrage of thoughts and emotions. What she had seen in the nightmare came back to her all at once, followed by a wave of memories from the day before, then by everything else that she had to deal with in the previous month. Her brain focused on every little thing could have gone wrong, they really had succeeded and survived just thanks to a series of very lucky miracles, nothing more, nothing less.

As her mind went through everything again and again, she sat there, face hidden between her knees, sobbing and crying like a scared kid, hiding away in shame of the long-ignored and newly-formed fears she was surrendering to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, sorry for the wait :'3  
> I know I said this chapter would have come out sooner, but I wasn't satisfied with the flow of this and the next chapter, so I took my time to make some needed fixes. I ended up practically changing half of the next chapter to a more manageable (and less depressing) direction, as well as adapting this chapter to it.
> 
> I hope it was worth the wait and that you all had a good time during the holidays!


	5. Chapter 5

“Rayla?”

Callum’s worried voice startled her, snapping her out of her daze.

Rayla didn’t reply, firmly nudging her face in her elbow and securing her crossed arms on her knees, ashamed at the realization that she hadn’t heard him coming.

She actually had no idea of how long she had been sitting on the steps of the Storm Spire, but she noticed that the sun had already shifted and her spot was now mostly in shade. After she had ran out of tears and energies, she had just remained curled up in the same position, her mind still racing without control while her senses became numb to the rest of the world. She only knew her eyes and head hurt, along with her whole body feeling feverish and weak, strained by how much she had tensed up during her breakdown.

She sensed him coming closer. “Rayla, are you okay? What’s happening?” he whispered gently as he approached her quietly, like he was afraid of scaring or upsetting her. The tone of his voice was so painfully apprehensive she instantly felt guilty.

Despite knowing that he wouldn’t have listened, she tried to tell him to go away, but the resistance put up by her lips dried together was enough to make her desist completely.

When she felt him sit close to her, her heartbeat picked up the pace. She expected him to touch her or say something, both things she wasn’t ready to deal with as her body felt almost feverish, but he surprisingly didn’t. Instead, after he seemed to place something next to him, she only felt the pressure of his stare as he softly sighed with worry.

They sat there for a while, not saying a word. She was feeling extremely embarrassed for having been caught in such a pathetic vulnerable state, yet Callum’s presence felt comforting to Rayla: he was still alive, unlike in her nightmare, and having him close to her was a huge source of relief.

Every time she sensed him moving, she wanted to say something, but she didn’t know what to say. She wanted him to go away so that she could recover a bit on her own, but at the same time his presence was soothing in a way that made her afraid of being alone again.

“Listen, I know it’s hard, but…” his voice quivered, “We don’t have to talk about _this_ now, if you’re not ready.” he murmured softly. She noticed his hand cautiously reaching towards her, hesitating and then limply dropping back on his thigh.

Rayla had expected him to be irritated or upset at her for disappearing without telling him, but he was only gentle and comprehensive. Her fingers dug into her arms’ skin as she tried to find the strength to do or say anything. She wanted to tell him what happened and how she was feeling, she wanted the pain to go away somehow, she wanted him to help her out of it, but her mind was in shambles and she didn’t know where to begin, her head pounding as she tried to think.

“I can leave you alone, if you prefer.” he resignedly murmured, getting up, “I have brought you som-” he started saying, before Rayla’s hand tugged the end of his shirt in an abrupt movement that startled him.

“No… Stay…” she weakly whimpered, an additional “Please.” vanishing in a breathless whisper he likely didn't hear. She had lifted her head from her knees and looked briefly in his direction. After she saw his torso turn again towards her, her neck felt too weak and sore to keep her head up any longer, so she let her brow rest on her forearm, shielding her face from him with her hand and hood. Yet, she kept holding on his shirt.

“Oh, so you didn’t turn to stone.“ Callum murmured, the hint of sarcasm barely scratching the overwhelming sweetness in his voice.

Her hand let go of the shirt in embarrassment, but he caught it as he sat back down, closer to her. After an initial resistance, she let him guide her hand between his own on his thigh, shivering when he started gently caressing it with his thumbs after he noticed it was tense and trembling. His touch felt like electric charges being fired up her arm at first, but she let herself get used to the tingling sensation, too tired to really fight back and reluctantly appreciative of the physical contact.

When Rayla finally dared to look at him from under her hood, she found his concerned stare trying to peek through her hair.

“Hey...” he murmured in a loving tone when their eyes met, his expression immediately switching to a timid adoring smile.

Her eyes quickly looked away, deeply mortified by her own behavior. She wished she knew what to say at all, he was trying to help her and she wanted to be helped, but her only instinct when it came to opening up about her own struggles was to hide away and wait it out quietly like wounded prey.

Callum’s fingers managed to slip between hers, ensnaring her hand in place between his palm and his thigh, then she felt his other hand move up her forearm. His fingers gently skimmed the skin right next to her bracer for a bit, hesitating like he was cautiously testing for a reaction, before his hand glided up around her arm and soundly landed on the back of her shoulder. Each touch felt like electricity again and made her arm almost shudder, but it was also calming, the pressure on her shoulder grounding her as well as reducing her trembling to a minimum. She weakly gripped his hand back, thankful despite her unceasing embarrassment.

“I don’t know what happened exactly, but I’m here for you.” he quietly murmured. Cautiously, his hand moved from her shoulder to the other, caressing her back in a way that, paired with the electric sensation she kept feeling at every touch, sent a stronger shiver down her spine. “I just want you to be okay again.” he added, caressing her shoulder as he moved slightly closer to her.

Rayla winced at his words. She had told him that phrase when he was on the brink of death after using Dark magic, shortly before realizing her own feelings for him. After that day, she had brooded over her own words and that whole situation a lot more than she’d like to admit, so hearing him say it triggered a sudden flood of feelings, making her effort to arginate it vain. Even if the dragon Queen seemed to have given their relationship her approval, she was instantly hit by all of the anxieties regarding it that she kept trying to hush, especially the enormous guilt she felt for the high likelihood of putting him in danger someday just by being with him. He didn’t deserve any of it... and she didn’t deserve him.

Her mind started racing down that chain of thoughts and, once again, it was too much for her to handle. She felt tears rushing to her eyes, her free hand springing to her face as she tried to contain them and choke her sobbing sounds.

Rayla’s heart skipped a beat when Callum let go of her hand, then skipped two more when he gently yet decisively pulled her into an embrace. She remained stunned for a few seconds as she felt the now-familiar electric charge run through her whole body. This time, however, after the initial tingling ache that made her flinch, she only felt a familiar warmth raising to her chest and cheeks.

She posed no resistance as he tenderly cradled her closer against his shoulder, leaned his cheek on her hood and let out one long quivering sigh. She felt ashamed when she realized he had wanted to do that since he got there, yet didn’t because of her past outbursts in similar vulnerable situations. He needed that embrace just as much as she did.

Before her mind could go down another spiral, her thoughts clouded when tears and violent sobs took control of her again, her hands gripping his shirt and scarf as if she was holding onto him for dear life again.

Callum didn’t let go of her until she calmed down and stopped crying, holding her steady and caressing her back whenever she hiccuped or trembled. Even when she straightened up, his arms remained around her torso, clearly reluctant to separate from her.

The sound of his heart, the heart she was so glad kept beating, had managed to soothe her thoughts, but she still felt terrible about everything. She reluctantly shifted her weight backwards, feeling too ashamed of herself and unworthy of him to even look him in the eyes. Gripped by another wave of guilt and shame, she tried to say she was sorry, but her throat was so dry that her voice broke into a pathetic quivering whimper.

He pulled her hood back. “Don’t be.” he simply said, cracking a smile.

She furrowed her brow and pursed her lips, clearing her throat to express her irritation with herself and with his tolerance in front of her immature behavior. She tried to lift her face to look at his face and say something, but before she could do it, her forehead was gently met by the bridge of his nose, nudging and nuzzling her for a moment before relaxing. She forgot what she had to say and closed her eyes, enjoying the surge in the electric feeling she had by then almost gotten used to.

His hands rested out of reach on her sides, pressing lightly on her waist, so her hands blindly searched for his arms to hold onto, yearning for more physical contact. Forgetting he didn’t have his jacket anymore, she winced when her fingers grazed the pigment of the runes painted on his bare skin. Her mind tried to find to the memories of the day before and of the nightmare, but she resisted it and let the thought pass without acknowledging it. Once it subsided, she let out a long trembling sigh as she allowed her body to relax. Suddenly she felt like she could finally breathe for real again.

Craving more of the electric sensation, she straightened her back a little, tenderly nudging Callum’s face so hers could rise to the same level. Her heart was flying and she felt blood rushing to her cheeks as their forehead touched. His nose lightly nuzzled hers and the corners of her mouth lifted on their own in a shy smile, to which followed a gleeful relieved puff from him. She didn’t need to open her eyes to know he was smiling and, when he playfully nuzzled her nose again, a chuckle escaped her own smile.

One of his hands left her side and made its way to her face, the unexpected touch of his fingers on her cheek surprising her like a static shock. When, after a moment of hesitation, he cupped her cheek, she couldn’t help but melt into his touch as yet another shiver went down her spine.

The movement of his fingers along with a wet sensation made her realize that she had unknowingly shed another tear, but she was too focused on him to care about why it happened. Her hands moved to his chest and shoulders on their own, almost to hold her up against the wave of emotions.

When his thumb accidentally touched her lips, the electric sensation felt so intoxicating that she faintly gasped for air. Before she could close her mouth, his lips were upon hers and his hand delicately pulled her into the kiss. Lost into him, she let herself get lulled by the dwindling sensation, but, when his lips left hers too soon and it was gone, she returned the kiss with all the love she had for him, ignoring all her anxieties as her own stirring emotions filled the void with warmth.

He clearly didn’t expect her to reciprocate so eagerly, getting nudged backwards as his lips posed absolutely no resistance to her push. Softly smiling, he promptly bounced back and matched her energy, his hand getting lost in her hair while the other pulled her closer from her waist.

Both his hands cupped her face when his lips moved away from hers, keeping her from chasing them. She thought he was being unfair, she wanted more.

The slightest hint of annoyance on Rayla’s face faded away when she opened her eyes and they immediately met with Callum’s. She blushed harder as a light breathless chuckle escaped hi smile.

His thumbs caressed her flushed cheeks and she instinctively closed her eyes, a content smile crossing her face as she exhaled. “You're always so strong." he murmured softly, still slightly out of breath.

Her eyes shot open and she glared at him, confused by the abrupt statement.

A slight smirk appeared on his face. "And smart. And brave." he continued, moving his head back as the smirk grew into a loving smile.

Recognizing the tone his words, she blushed so hard that her ears were burning like Sunforged blades. He was doing _that_ again.

"And beautiful." he said in the most adoring tone as he moved strand of hair behind her ear, his eyes truly shining like he was seeing the most splendid thing ever.

Rayla seriously questioned her own appearance after crying for who knew how long, but in that moment there was little space in her mind for anything that wasn’t him. She merely kept looking at him, captivated, while blushing through brighter shades of red.

"Rayla, you're truly the most amazing person I've ever met," he whispered, looking at her in the eyes, "and I love you." he concluded, pressing his lips on her forehead and holding them there for a moment.

The way Callum gushed about her was always mesmerizing for her and she doubted she could ever get used to it. It wasn’t what he said that magnetized her whole self, but how he said it. There was something in the way he saw her and talked about her that she could never really understand, how could he appreciate her so much -even after everything she had directly or indirectly done to him and his loved ones- was beyond her, but it struck her deeply every time.

Rayla’s mind broke for a moment, all the things she wanted to say and do fighting for priority inside her head, and all she could do was breathe in deeply.

She tried to say something, but Callum interrupted her, pulling her face up with his hand. “Aaand that’s true even if you’re not always at your best.” he said with a sly expression that edged on apprehension due to his furrowed brow, “I know that you’ll always get up again... and that I’ll be there when you can’t do it on your own.” he finished, his coy smile and forcefully cheery tone failing to hide what he really meant.

Rayla could almost hear the sound of the last standing wall she had put around herself when it cracked and crumbled down. She had always been scared of the pain of opening up to someone, yet she instantly felt freer than she ever did before. She chuckled lightly, frowning at him with a half-amused smile before she hugged him.

“You’re terrible,” she said, her tone meaning the exact opposite thing, “and I love you too.” she said softly, kissing the edge of his jaw not to break the embrace.

He amusedly snorted and held her tightly. “Promise to tell me everything when you’re ready? You know, ‘big feelings time’?” he said, serious despite his happy tone.

Rayla sat back straight without looking at him, finding her way to his hands and looking at them for a moment. She nodded, then paused for a bit as her face sobered in concentration. She breathed in deeply.

“But I want to do it now.” she affirmed, her usual confidence now backing her up as she looked Callum in the eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's the fluff I promised 👀  
> This chapter really did give me issues while writing it, it's the most instense chapter of the fic and I wanted it to be good. Even after going through a few different sequences of events, I practically had to change half of the chapter because I didn't like where it was going, but now I'm satisfied with it and I'm finally able to post it!
> 
> I hope I'll be able to post next chapter before the end of the year (it's still in a very early stage right now), otherwise I hope you'll spend a nice New Year's day!


	6. Chapter 6

“Are you sure?” Callum said, arching his brows as he focused on Rayla’s face to check for any sign of wavering.  
“Yeah, better get it over with.” she responded with a low voice, resignedly shrugging and looking away.

The proud and soft smile on Callum’s face turned into a goofy expression as he lifted his index finger all of a sudden. “That’s okay for me, but first...” he hurriedly said as he turned towards what he had placed next to him, “here. I didn’t know which you’d prefer, so...”

He first handed Rayla a water flask, then a piece of bread and a jelly tart. Her initial disconcerted glare turned into an irked judgemental stare.

When he turned around, his face froze in an extremely worried expression, staring at her like she was about to kill him for the interruption. She vaguely considered the option for an instant, then she rolled her eyes and sighed. He was indeed an idiot, but he was lucky he was _her_ idiot.

“What was it? ‘Breakfast is the most important meal of the day’, huh?” she sarcastically said with one brow arched, shifting on the rocky seat in order to sit as properly as she could and laying the food on her legs so she could open the flask.

“Y-yeah, of course, of course. Aunt Amaya, she always says, uh, signs it. Y-you know what I mean.” he sheepishly mumbled, “It’ll make you feel a bit better, you haven't eaten much yesterday.” he quickly added, looking away and doing the same thing she did with his portion so his hands could fumble with something out of her field of vision.

Despite feeling mildly annoyed, while she drank from the flask she couldn’t help being grateful to him for bringing along some water, since after all that crying she felt dehydrated to say the least. She then poured a bit of liquid on her cupped hand and washed her cheeks and eyelids with it, enjoying the refreshing feeling.

As for food, her stomach wasn’t really feeling it, but she was indeed weak and she knew that eating something wouldn’t hurt in the long run. She was too focused on trying to convince herself to eat something to really register what Callum was doing or saying.

“I figured I would eventually feel cold without my jacket, so I brought this along. It’s not exactly ‘breakfast in bed’, but... Here.” he said, throwing one side of the blanket over Rayla’s shoulders, making her jump slightly when it touched her. “Oh, sorry! Sorry!” he hurriedly mumbled.

“Thanks…” she apathetically said, gripping the edge of the cloth and properly pulling it over her shoulder. It was actually a good idea -even she wasn’t exactly cold, being shielded from the high-altitude air was nice-, but her mind was elsewhere. Holding the blanket with one hand, she picked the bread and started absentmindedly munching on it, while staring blindly at the rocks in front of her.

Noticing her lack of murderous instinct, Callum looked at her for a moment, then nonchalantly moved closer, shoulder to shoulder with her under the shared blanket. Rayla was too absorbed by her own thoughts to react, only her ears moved slightly lower on their own. He puzzledly stared at her for a bit longer, then sighed and picked up the bread as well.

After an uncomfortably long silence, in which she forgot to keep eating, Rayla sighed loudly, almost making Callum choke on his jelly tart due to the sudden noise.

“Callum, I… I was afraid. And I...” she said, her voice low and hoarse. The words died in her throat and she didn’t continue, digging her nails in the palm of her hands to keep herself together.

“Well, that’s understandab-” he started muttering, not knowing if she had anything else to say.

“No, it's not! I shouldn’t have been, it was my duty and I almost failed it!” she cried, her voice breaking.

Callum’s hand closed around hers. “You haven’t told me everything that happened yet. Why don’t you start from the beginning?” he suggested, trying to keep his worry at bay.

Rayla looked at him for a brief second, before returning her attention to the rocks and breathing in deeply.

While she explained what had happened the previous day at the Storm Spire’s peak, Callum apprehensively listened without saying a word.

Rayla knew the tone of her words was filled with distress and agitation, but even if she promised herself and Callum to make the effort of being open about her feelings, she kept trying to hide them. Every time she did it too noticeably, his hand gripped hers just slightly, so she’d go back and say it again without too many filters. Admitting what emotions she had to bottle up the day before was hard, especially after the adrenaline and pressure of the situation were long gone.

Then, as she reached the most painful moment to remember of the previous day, she stopped and tensed up. She knew she couldn't talk about it without breaking down.

“And so… You did _it_.” Callum sighed, “I… You didn’t hear me, but I was there.” he added, murmuring in a vaguely hurt voice. His hand firmly gripped hers in a reassuring manner, but she could feel a slight trembling coming from it.

Rayla’s ears perked up as she turned towards him for the first time since she started talking. “Callum, I-I thought-” she stammered in shock, before her free hand shot up to her mouth. As she gasped and looked away, she felt herself crumbling inward. “I… I thought I was imagining it…” she whimpered, tears gathering in her eyes.

She was hit full force by the reality of things, which somehow had totally slipped her mind until that point. He was able to follow and save her so quickly that he must have had to see her jump, there was no other way. It was so painfully obvious that, deep down, she knew she didn’t imagine his voice, but in the flurry of events that followed their landing on the Spire and her nightmare, she had little time to actually realize the implications of it all.

“Hey, no, it’s okay, you’re okay now.” he quickly said, holding her hand with both of his, alarmed at the sight of her tears, “You did what you had to do to save Zym.” he continued, trying to hide the sadness in his voice as much as he could.

Rayla fought hard not to start sobbing. “It’s not that…” she groaned, looking at him for a moment, “I put you in danger too.” she managed to say before going back to fight her tears.

Callum stared at her for a moment, confused. “Wait, you almost _died_ and you worry about me?!” he bursted, biting his lips when he realized how carelessly he had worded it.

She didn’t care if he said it as it was, but she felt irked by what he meant regardless. “Yes, because you apparently jumped after me without even knowing if you could do that dumb magic spell!” she snapped, yanking her hand from under his. His hand tried to follow hers, but he stopped when he noticed it drying her cheeks.

Callum breathed in deeply. "So was I supposed to just let you... Fall?" his words quivered and choked over the frustration.

A shiver went down her spine. "I would have been okay with it." she admitted after a brief pause, “I knew what I was doing. I didn't expect you or anyone to save me. I wouldn’t have blamed you if you… didn’t...”

“I would have blamed myself if I didn’t do it.” he rebutted right away without letting her finish, trying hard to keep his voice in check.

“You shouldn’t have. It was too dangerous.” she replied as calmly as she could, starting to regret the whole ‘opening up’ thing.

“But it worked!” he insisted, his voice cracking in a slight note of desperation.

“Yeah, by luck!” she exclaimed, exasperated.

“Hey!” he glared at her, slightly offended.

“It _was_ luck, Callum. And even if it wasn’t, it doesn’t change anything!” she crossed her arms, not understanding why he couldn’t get what she meant.

“Yes, it does, because we’re _both_ alive!” he loudly stressed, putting his hand on her shoulder.

Rayla didn’t reply nor shrug him off. She felt stung by the memories of the nightmare and struggled to get it out of her head.

"You keep putting your life in danger to save others, why can't I do the same for you?" Callum resignedly sighed. She could tell he was irritated, but the pleading worry in his voice was overwhelming.

"Because I care too much about you to see you do it." she groaned. She truly didn’t want any danger to come close to him, especially if it was her own fault.

"And so do I! How do you think I feel every time you do something dangerous?" he murmured softly, despite his words feeling like stabs in her chest.

"You know I can do it though!” she protested, “I’ve done it for you and Ez and Zym countless times, since the day we’ve met! And if I recall correctly, you even seem to like it!"

He groaned, putting his other hand on his face. "Yes, I'm glad you did. And yes, I’m always amazed when you do pretty much anything. But the thing is… Even if I truly trust your abilities, every single time you go off to do something dangerous, I can't help being scared!”

“Of what?” she inquired, turning towards him to square his face, half annoyed and half legitimately curious.

“Of losing you!” he responded, fighting to speak through the lump in his throat as he stared her in the eyes.

It took a few seconds for it to sink in, but, when it did, Rayla’s breath froze and she couldn’t hold his stare anymore. She felt as if she was suddenly dragged under icy water by the weight of the uncomfortable revelation, so she leaned forward on her elbows to support herself against it.

Rayla never really questioned the consequences her own actions had, at least not until she discovered her own people had ghosted her.

She had always followed what Runaan had told her to do, seeking his and the rest of her team’s approval. They all saw potential in her and she made it her goal to live up to their expectations, keeping any doubt or moral question for herself in fear of being rejected by them. She had always done it well enough, but then, for the first time ever, she decided to do her own thing -the right thing- and that lead to her guardian and the others dying. Her actions had hurt others and their loved ones in ways she could not fix nor truly justify to herself, even if she truly believed it was for the right cause.

Ethari was right, she was not fit to be an assassin. She was not used to having this responsibility over other people’s emotions and she had no good example in her life to learn from, as her parents left her in the care of Runaan and Ethari when she was still little. When she expressed her wish to become an assassin like him, Runaan taught her simply not to care about how others perceived her nor the questionability of the actions she would have to carry out, and that was it. She grew up expecting only disappointment or praise directed at how she handled things, not her directly. She would be but a tool of justice and she was proud of the noble path she chose, but that had isolated her further from her peers who didn't want to trust a wannabe-assassin.

Both Runaan and Ethari always kept their cool around her, even when she accidentally hurt herself during training or when they thought her parents had ran away from their duty. Even Ethari, who was pretty much the only non-assassin elf she ever had any meaningful relationship with, always did his best to keep his worry for Runaan hidden away from her when his husband would go on missions, she would only catch minor differences in his behavior or an apprehensive sigh here and there if she sneaked up on him, but that was it. Like showing fear, displaying emotional vulnerability was an implicit social taboo in the Silvergrove, so no one ever did it lightly, even within families. For assassins and those close to them, the reality of it was even harsher, since unchecked emotions could mean failure and death. Like hers did.

Her guardians obviously cared deeply for her well-being, just as much as her own parents, yet Rayla realized that, out of all her people, only Ethari ever showed her how much he truly cared for her, but just when she came back as a ghost and he truly feared that it would be the last time he’d see her again. She knew that he would have been in troubles if the rest of the Silvergrove found out about him momentarily breaking the ghosting spell, so risking that much just to see her one last time was worth more than any word he could ever tell her.

Ironically, no elf ever explicitly expressed their fear of losing her in all her life aside from Ethari, yet a human did so after the little time they knew each other, even after she had tried to kill him and what was left of his family. A month prior, she would have never believed such a thing to be possible.

She knew her loved ones cared for her just as much, but hearing those words for the very first time shattered something inside her. It was painful at first, guilt flooding her senses as she realized how much she had made Callum worry in the weeks they spent together, but once it washed away she was left with newfound warmth in her heart and a new resolve.

Suddenly, Callum’s hand weakly slided down her arm, before he retracted it, digging his fingers in his leg. "So... how do you think I felt when I saw you jumping from the pinnacle? You… You knew you couldn't survive that." he whispered. His words were meant to be fully accusatory, yet his voice expressed nothing but badly-muffled anguish.

"I-" she stopped. Of course she couldn't lie and say she was going to make it, but no other words came to her mind.

Not a word came from Callum and she didn’t dare to look at him. She agonized over what she had said until that point, finally fully aware of how awful it all sounded, and she feared saying something that could hurt him again.

Rayla simply watched as tears quietly fell from her eyes to the ground between her feet. The ache in her chest kept growing the more time passed, his words calcifying as painful spikes over her realization, while her own emotions went all over the place.

She heard a sniff coming from him and it felt like a dagger to her chest. She quickly turned and raised her head to look at him, but when their eyes met, he looked away, pulling slightly on the blanket.

Before she could muster up the courage to say anything, he sniffed again and a tear trailed down his cheek. Her hand darted to his and, to her surprise, he promptly intertwined his fingers with hers.

"I had nightmares. This morning.” he sighed hoarsely, still looking the other way as he struggled not to cry, “I always woke up before they turned… worse. Each time, you were sleeping next to me, holding my hand, and I... calmed down. Then, when I woke up and you weren't there, I..." he swallowed, barely holding himself together, “I thought I had failed, for real.”

Rayla felt another wave of guilt knock the air out of her chest. 

"I’m sorry.” she whimpered, leaning her forehead on his shoulder. She inhaled deeply. “I came here because I was afraid of sleeping again." she admitted with a whisper.

Callum turned to look at her and she lifted her head. “You had nightmares too?” he replied full of worry as another tear went down his cheek.

She nodded. “You can guess about what.” she shrugged with an apologetic smirk, sheepishly glancing elsewhere for a moment. “Aaand I guess now I might be afraid of heights.” she added quickly, somewhat trying to use the irony of the situation to make him laugh. It did the opposite and his face turned into solid distressed concern.

“Rayla-” he whispered, before being cut out by her sudden embrace.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t say it yet, but… Thank you for catching me.” she muttered in his scarf, then held onto him as tightly as she could without hurting him, hoping she could convey what she felt through her body instead of words.

His arms closed around her almost as if he was actually catching her in that very moment. He pressed his face in her hair and let out a quivering sigh that turned into sobbing.

Rayla couldn’t help joining him. She surrendered to the fact that she couldn’t stop Callum from putting himself in danger if it meant saving her, no matter how much she could try to convince him. It was a relief that he was at least skilled with Primal magic and that maybe the worst had finally passed, yet the mere possibility of it happening again still struck her with uneasiness and fear. Likewise, she couldn’t ignore the fact that their feelings of fear and protectiveness were mutual, so she found lukewarm comfort and appreciation in it, committing herself to do her best and keep both of them away from unnecessary risks.

She finally let herself be unapologetically grateful they both survived the previous day... and that someone would even risk so much for her.

Neither was willing to break the embrace, even after they both had calmed down and the position had started becoming uncomfortable.

“I guess you don’t want to also talk about what you dreamed, right?” Callum sighed hoarsely, still holding onto her.

“Precisely.” Rayla said, tensing up slightly, “It was bad and I’ve had enough of ‘big feelings time’ to last me for years. As you might have noticed, I’m not made for this stuff.” she grumbled.

“Nah, you’ve actually been pretty good,” he giggled and patted her back, then turned serious, “but you said that now you’re afraid of heights and… that’s a bit of a problem right now, don’t you think?”

Rayla groaned “Yeah, I know. Going over the bridge was pretty troublesome.”

“You do realize we’ll have to do it again to go back, right?”

When Rayla tensed up and didn’t reply, Callum grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her forward so he could look at her face. She must have had a particularly funny expression of unadulterated loathing and self-pity, because he snorted loudly despite how worried he was.

“You know, whenever I got hurt during training with Soren, Kin-... my stepfather always said that I should try again as soon as possible, otherwise I’d grow afraid of it. And I think he was right, becau-” he started explaining.

“That’s cute, but I’m not going back on it. Out of the question.” she cut him off when she understood where he was going with his inspiring speech.

Callum scowled at her, then looked elsewhere, concentrated. “Do you want me to fly you there?” he offered, barely holding back a grin of excitement.

“No no no, that’s even worse!” she gulped, terrified at the idea of even seeing him in the air, let alone _being_ in it.

“Oh come on, you know I’m good at it! It’ll be fun!” he finally grinned.

“You _kinda_ are, but I said no. Just… just leave me this blanket and I’ll go down on my own.” she scrambled, trying to pull the blanket from him.

“Oh no, now _that_ ’s out of question.” he rebutted, trying to keep the blanket on his shoulders, “Ibis finally agreed to teach me more magic, so we can’t leave! That and, of course, the fact that Zubeia still ha-”

A sudden brittle sound startled them. Rayla turned around.

“Oh no... the jelly tart!” she exclaimed, looking at the poor crumbled dessert next to her foot. She had placed it on the rock next to her while she narrated what happened the day before, but when Callum pulled the lower part of the blanket he struck the innocent tart with it, sending it twirling off the edge.

Callum laughed again. “That’s okay, if you’re still hungry there’s more where it came from.” he said, touching Rayla’s cheek so she would face him again.

She shot him a judgy glare, then looked down, pursing her lips in hesitation at the idea of going back.

"I just… I wish I had arrived a few moments earlier. Maybe all of this could have been avoided." he whispered with a glum look, caressing the line of her jaw with his thumb.

Rayla sighed and shook her head. "It's in the past now. What matters is that we're both here now, right?" she said, smiling at him when she looked up. She was still feeling all over the place and that optimism was maybe too forced coming from her so soon, but it did the trick.

He smiled back and their lips met yet again for a brief moment, then they both extended into even bigger smiles. This time, for Rayla, it was a genuine one.

“Come on, let’s go back. The others will be up soon.” he encouraged her, getting out from under the blanket.

“Ugh, okay, but I just want to sleep. Or there will be blood.” she groaned, giving him the side-eye.

Callum got up first and held his hand out for Rayla. When she got up, her legs were still slightly wobbly and very much tired, but his arms closed around her waist and kept her steady. Her eyes lingered on the runes painted on his arms for a few seconds, guilt and pride twisting inside her mind for dominance over what she should feel at their sight.

He quickly picked up the water flask and a chunk of the pastry that was still intact. “Bait will eat this one anyway.” he winked at her.

She adjusted the blanket on her shoulders. Even if he had helped her feel better, he couldn’t fix her tiredness, so the cloth shielding her unusually cold-sensitive skin from the air felt comforting.

When they started climbing the stairs, he noticed her lagging behind, so he took her hand with his free one. The gesture was reassuring, but she still avoided looking too much around her as she tried to hush the thought of how high up they were in that moment.

“Are you okay?” Callum inquired, noticing her bothered expression and pursed lips.

"It’s just… We’re up a mountain. Way up. Going even higher. And... you know...” she replied, furrowing her brow and squinting at the idea of how stupid it was for her to be afraid, especially after climbing the very same stairs with no issues a few days ago.

“Oh, right. Just… Focus on me, okay?” he said, squeezing her hand.

She looked up at him and stopped after a few steps. “Thank you... For being so patient with me." she muttered, slightly mortified.

"It's okay. Plus I’ve learned that being too pushy with you doesn't work." he said, shrugging as he turned around.

Rayla sneered at him. "Oh, really? Then what about that time in the desert? If I remember correctly, you even got mad at me, yet that worked so well I ended up kissing you." she remarked with a sardonic smile.

He blinked and blushed slightly. "Uh, yeah, buuut you also threatened to kill me if I said anything about it." he replied, arching his eyebrows as he rolled his eyes and pointed at her with a finger he freed from her hand.

"Lucky that you remember it, because that happens to be true for this time as well." she smirked smugly.

"Oh, your sarcasm is now back?" he said, laughing a bit.

"Yeah, sarcasm. Sure." she replied as she started going up the stairs again, letting his hand go after giving him a strong squeeze and a playfully sly glare that left him in doubt and concern for a few seconds, before he chased her up the last ramp of stairs.

Rayla felt her heart rear up and try to flee when she got to the edge of the bridge. She was thankful no one was around on the other side, because she knew her face just got quite a few shades lighter the moment she had looked up to it. The distance felt much wider than what she remembered and her knees started feeling weak.

Callum caught up to her and placed his hand on her shoulder, locking eyes with her with an intensity that meant “Don’t worry, I’m here for you.”

Rayla reached for his hand and closed her eyes, welcoming the resolve he gave her. She knew she was being irrationally afraid of something she didn’t even care for until the day before, but she didn’t want her fears to stop her from doing what she was good at. Despite her immense fear of water, she had sailed rivers and seas thanks to Callum, so that bridge would be a literal walk with him at her side. She would get over it, just like she was sure she could get over her newfound fear.

She took a deep breath, opened her eyes to stare right in front of her and, before Callum could nudge her forward, she stepped on the bridge. Her whole body winced at the slight movement of the structure, as if it was as narrow as a rope, but she kept walking.

Nervous step after nervous step, she held onto Callum’s hand for support. He was walking slower than her, so that she could lead the way at her own pace, and she noticed him squeezing her hand slightly in order to keep her focused whenever she’d look down.

As her foot was about to touch the solid rock of the Storm Spire, she instinctively sprinted on it, almost making the poor human boy lose his balance before he smartly let her hand go. Equal parts exhilarated and terrorized, she felt hit by the warm long-forgotten memory of when she was a little kid and would walk on branches with her parents’ help. Even if her body was still shaking, she started smiling at the similarities and at how thinking about her parents didn't hurt as much anymore. She turned around with an excited half-twirl.

“See, it wasn’t that ba-” Callum started saying, before Rayla pulled him by the scarf into a quick kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm superlate with this chapter, but between wanting to write this chapter properly and being busy with other stuff in the past week it took way more than I would have liked, sorry x-x
> 
> But yeah, here's some more angst and fluff, I hope you like it!


	7. Chapter 7

Rayla felt alive, thankful, in love… And extremely tired.

The exhilaration she felt after crossing the bridge ran out eerily quickly, possibly tiring her out even further. As they entered the hall of the Storm Spire, the blanket on her shoulder started feeling heavy, so much so it accidentally slipped her grasp.

Surprisingly, no one was in there yet and everything seemed unchanged from when Rayla had passed through it, but, over the deep sound of the dragon Queen’s slow breaths, they could hear a few noises coming from the Dragonguards’ quarters.

“So… Do you want to go back to sleep now?” Callum asked, crouching to grab the blanket from the pavement and handing it to her as he stood up.

Rayla nodded, but her face expressed a shy reluctant concern as she refused the blanket.

Callum caught on it right away. “It’s fine, everyone was still asleep when I left. And if they ask, we’ll just say we went out to get some fresh air, which is technically true.“ he shrugged quietly, smirking in her direction as he covered himself with the blanket.

She anxiously grumbled as she followed him down the corridor, both walking as softly as they could. She really didn’t want to interact with other people at the moment, but luckily the few elves they found awake were too busy to notice them, quietly chatting with each other while they folded up their beds.

They got to their room without anyone stopping them, which was a huge relief for Rayla. When she opened the door, she found their friends still asleep. Ezran was sleeping on his back with Bait sprawled on his chest, while Soren was snoring a bit louder, still in the same spot as when she had left.

Rayla quietly moved into the room and quickly got under her own sheets. It wasn’t the most comfortable bed, but at that point she’d have been happy to sleep even on the bare rock under it.

After giving Callum one last thankful half-smile, she turned to face the wall, since the light was hitting the small window just right to shine light on her face. He then crouched beside her to tuck her in once again, gently moving a strand of hair behind her ear before sitting on his own mat.

Rayla's mind didn’t stray far from him as she started drifting towards unconsciousness, but a sudden grumble followed by a yawn jolted her back to vigilance.

Even if she had no problems filtering out the sound of people getting up in the rest of the structure, her senses were still on edge after all the emotional ups and downs of the past days, so familiar voices and sounds would of course wake her up. She didn’t open her eyes just yet and dug her face under the blanket's edge, pretending to still be soundly asleep.

“Oh, hi, Ez!” Callum whispered. “Rayla is still sleeping, so shhhhh!”

“Sorry. By the way, if any of you guys want it, you can sleep on my bed, it’s comfy!” Ezran said with an extremely sleepy voice, followed by a noisy stretch. “I'm gonna go see Zym now!” he added, lowering his voice.

Bait grumbled some more and, from what Rayla could understand by the sounds he made, jumped off the bed towards the door, where his tongue snatched the dirty jelly tart that was lying next to Callum.

Soren choked on his snore, then sat up with a clattering of his armor that covered whatever he quietly muttered to the young King.

“Don’t worry, I’ll just be upstairs!” Ezran whispered, suddenly fully awake, as he jumped out of his bed. “‘Later!” he added, before opening the door and leaving with less quietness than what he probably intended.

Rayla still pretended to be asleep, so she didn’t catch what Soren said to Callum after he loudly moved towards the door. How could he be so loud and quiet at the same time was out of Rayla’s comprehension.

“-okay now.” Callum responded as quietly as he could, falling for her act like everyone else, so she only caught the last couple of words over the noise.

Soren’s reply got covered yet again by the sound of his armor as he left.

When Callum turned around, he found Rayla lying on her elbows, staring at him with a questioning scowl.

“Weren’t you asleep?” he fumbled, clearly bothered by the fact she was not.

“Of course not, you guys’ idea of ‘quiet’ is quite noisy, to say the least.” Rayla scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Also I think I’ll take on Ezran’s offer, if you don't mind.” Rayla stated, getting up and tiredly walking to the bed, before letting herself fall back on it. The soft, comfy bed.

While normally she would have been curious about whatever the two boys had said, she just didn’t have the energy to care in that moment. She just wanted to sleep and, given the soft mattress she was on, she didn’t even bother with pulling up the sheets.

After a few seconds, Callum sat on the edge of the bed and the shift in the balance of the mattress made Rayla open her eyes. She wanted to make a witty remark about his not-so-bird-like weight, but once she realized he was sitting right next to her torso, looking down at her with a tender smile, she blushed and forgot what she had to say.

He clearly became aware of the miscalculated intimacy of the situation around the same time, as his cheeks blasted with color and he hastily got up to pull the sheets over Rayla.

“He-here, or you might get a cold, it’ll be night soon, I mean, in a few hours, an-” he babbled, before noticing her murderous stare barely peeking from behind the blanket that ended up on her face. “Right. Sorry.” he shamefully muttered, helping her make sense of the disordered cloth.

Once she was properly tucked in -he apparently liked doing that and she didn’t really want to complain either-, he sat next to her legs, still with a hint of red on his cheeks.

“I don’t feel like sleeping, I’ll keep guard so no one will interrupt your sleep on the royal bed, your Majesty.” he said softly, patting on her knee with a self-important smug smile.

"Thanks, you royal dork." she replied, lightly hitting his bottom with her shin from under the sheet. They both laughed under their breath as Callum badly imitated a guard on duty.

Rayla rolled on one side and closed her eyes, but despite her tiredness she couldn’t shake that buzzing need in her chest nor the uneasiness she had been feeling since they got back. She wouldn’t have minded having Callum closer in that moment, since they were finally alone and quiet. Her heart had fluttered in such a nice way when he sat right next to her that she wanted more of that. Though she also cursed herself for enjoying that moment of feeling vulnerable and protected, especially after their “big feelings time” when she felt the opposite way about it all.

For a moment, the rogue thought of him sleeping in the same bed as her went through her mind. She chased it away before she’d act on weird ideas -like actually asking him to join her-, but her cheeks and ears had already become extremely hot.

Flustered and annoyed at her inability to keep her thoughts in check, she opened her eyes just enough to see what Callum was doing. She found him adoringly staring at her from the bottom of the bed, one fist holding up his chin as he leaned forward on his sketchbook closed in his lap. He looked like a total dork, but a dork in love with her, so she didn’t mind at all. She quietly sighed as the corners of her mouth stretched into a pleased smile.

“You’re not much of a guard, if you don’t even look at the door.” she amusedly muttered from under the covers, nudging her foot against his hip.

That was apparently enough to scare the absentminded Callum and he almost fell from the bed when he flinched. “Why can’t you sleep?” he whined, embarrassed.

That was a question she didn’t want to answer honestly, but she also decided to throw any self-imposed discretion away. They were 'a thing' and he made her feel safer, it shouldn't have been weird for her to feel that way.

“Mmh, I think I will, if you…” she muttered, staring at him and nudging his hip with her foot a few more times.

He blushed, but remained still, so her eyebrows had to intervene as well, arching as her eyes pointed towards the spot next to her. After a few more seconds of confusion, he finally got it.

“Oh.” he exclaimed, sheepishly looking away as he shuffled closer. “Is this okay?” he whispered, unsure.

Rayla closed her eyes and murmured quietly in contentment, hiding her blush under the blanket and, without even noticing, slightly curling herself around his seat. She felt her whole body finally relax and the sense of safety lulled her to sleep.

\-----

Rayla was again rushing to the pinnacle.

Her heartbeat thundered in her ears and she could barely breathe, the smell of blood being so unbearable she could practically taste it.

She was being chased, she could hear the footsteps and the constant clang of metal behind her, but she didn’t want to wait and find out who they belonged to. She knew exactly they were hunting her down, but the reason why escaped her. Unarmed, she just kept running as fast as she could, seemingly gaining enough distance over them not to hear them so vividly.

She finally reached the pinnacle and found the silhouette of Viren waiting for her. She stopped, expecting him to say something, but he remained quiet and, as he turned around, his shape warped into something monstrous she could barely comprehend.

Before she could run away from the horrific sight, the deformed creature casted some kind of dark magic spell, creating a huge tornado that lifted her from the ground. Fear gripped both her mind and her powerless body as the current of dark magic swerved and twisted in the sky. Then, it crashed against the floor of the pinnacle, making it collapse inwards just moments before she’d impact with it.

She screamed in pain from the rocks that hit her body during the fall and the subsequent crash, but it was nothing compared to what she felt once she opened her eyes. The scene in front of her was from where the smell of blood originated.

Zubeia laid dead in her chamber, looking peaceful just as when she slept, if not for the hundred spears that pierced her body and the trickles of blood that came from her mouth. Inches from her, Zym’s egg was smashed to shards and dust, making it barely recognizable.

Rayla’s body moved closer on its own, her mind stuck in shock and denial, unable to form any thought that wasn’t grief. Then, as she reached what was left of the egg, she felt herself shatter at the sight of what was obscured by the Queen’s head.

So many human and elven bodies alike were lying in the blood-soaked grass, all familiar faces that she didn’t dare to recognize nor allowed herself to give names to. Her eyes only focused on the figures in front of her and her knees gave in as she stumbled towards them.

Her parents, lying next to each other, each struck by spears, as if they were shielding the Queen before they fell. The assassin she could almost call 'father', fallen by many blades amongst which she found her own. A king with a broken crown, struck down during the fight, his silver and gold armor tinted in scarlet tones like the cloth that adorned it. A young prince, just a kid, who held onto his pet in the last moments of fear, before oblivion came for him in the shape of her other blade. And, kneeling over the latter with his remaining strength, what made her heart completely break and howl in anguish.

“How could you do this?!” the boy cried when he looked up after her shriek, only anger and pain on his face, “Get away from me! I hate you!” he screamed again with everything he had, before collapsing on the ground red like his scarf due to his wounds.

Shaking and unable to move, Rayla looked down at her own hands, realizing there had been blood on them all along. As she gasped at the sight, the two blood-stained silver ribbons on her wrists turned scarlet, before falling to the ground.

She had done that. She couldn’t remember how, but she was sure of it. Agony filled her chest as she broke down.

“Rayla...” many voices called.

She barely sensed her shadowy pursuers getting closer, unable to look away from the painful scene in front of her.

“Rayla.” the twisted dark mage laughed, crawling down the wall of the Queen’s chamber.

She closed her eyes and waited, surrendering to whatever just punishment was to come for her.

She heard the swing of metal blades behind her.

“Rayla!”

\---

“Rayla, wake up!” Callum’s voice begged as his palm pressed on her cheek.

She inhaled sharply and a convulsive movement shook her whole body back to consciousness. She opened her eyes and struggled to breathe, confused and alarmed.

“Hey, hey, look at me.” he whispered over the roar of her own heartbeat in her ears, caressing her cheek and trying to make her look up. His hand felt like fire to her skin covered in cold sweat.

It took her a few seconds to focus on the worried face above her, but it worked. Once she realized he was alive and unharmed, enough of her panic went away and she was able to take full breaths again. Her heartbeat partially slowed down and she let her legs relax on the mattress.

“Callum,” she mouthed, “I-”

“You were having another nightmare, right?” he quietly said, his brow furrowing with concern.

Rayla gulped and nodded, breathing in slowly to calm herself down.

With the corner of her eyes she noticed her hand was gripping his wrist. She quickly let go of it, alarmed at the fact she didn’t remember doing it, and he squeezed his hand to make blood flow through it again. She stared in shame as the marks left by her fingers on his skin slowly disappeared.

“It’s okay, you didn’t hurt me.” he lied with a soft smile when she looked up at him with guilt-ridden eyes, then used the same hand to take hers and hold it to his chest.

Knowing very well he wasn’t being honest, she sheepishly looked elsewhere for a moment.

The light was getting dimmer in the late spring’s sunset and the room was mostly in shade, but she could perfectly see even without the enchanted candle on the wall. No one was in there other than them. Her bed was a mess and her sheets were mostly on the ground, if not for the edge she was reflexively holding on her chest.

Callum adjusted his legs to a more comfortable position. He was still leaning over her, albeit not as much as before to give her space. She shuffled upwards a bit, just enough to be in a less uncomfortable position as well. Her body was still shaking too much for her to get up and her mind was again under siege by the memories of the nightmare. She breathed in deeply, trying to bury her panic.

From his chest, Rayla’s hand shyly moved up to his cheek and Callum leaned into her touch, letting go of her hand while his fingers lingered on her wrist as she did so. Along the way, her fingers trembled as they checked his skin for the deep cuts he had on his chest and face in her nightmare. When she found nothing, she felt a wave of relief wash over her and tears started gathering in her narrowed eyes.

He leaned in closer. “It was just a nightmare, I’m fine.” he whispered, closing his eyes a little when he smiled. He must have understood what she was doing and she felt a jolt of embarrassment.

“I’m sorry…” she muttered, feeling stupid for letting a bad dream get to her again, but also meaning it for the horrible things she had supposedly done in it, even if they were not real.

“It’s okay, don’t worry.” he smiled lovingly, “I’ll always be here for you.” As he caressed her cheek again, his thumb caught a runaway tear.

Her lips and brow contracted as she felt herself crumble again, her mind’s defences suddenly succumbing to the memory of the Callum of her nightmare. Her heart was sure she could have never done that to him, but she knew how close she had gone to making at least part of her nightmare become a reality. That was why it hurt so much, even if it was just in her mind.

Rayla let her hand drop and, after forcing her other hand to let go of the corner of the sheet she was still holding, her arms wrapped around him. For a moment she tried to lift herself up to hug him tight, but when she realized she didn’t have enough strength yet, she instinctively opted to pull him down in her embrace instead.

Callum didn’t expect her to tug on him and he immediately lost his balance, practically falling on her. As his face hit the pillow with a surprised gasp, she hid her face in his scarf, almost eager to finally let herself cry.

Even with his unsupported torso resting on her chest, she didn’t feel crushed by the weight as she expected, instead the pressure felt reassuring and comforting. Between her sobs, she could even feel his accelerated heartbeat soothingly resound in her chest.

He remained still for a while, then quickly tried to lift himself up. His movements were unsure, as if he believed he had somehow slipped and hurt her, but she held onto him tightly, not letting him move.

Then, after moment of hesitation and a whisper of her name, he slid one of his arms behind her shoulders and the other around her waist, embracing her closely and arching his back not to weight completely on her chest. He pressed his lips on her hair, whispering reassuring words whenever a sob shook her.

They remained like that for a while even after she stopped crying, until a low rumble made the walls tremble, alarming them.

“Oh, I guess Zubeia is finally awake.” Callum muttered as he pushed himself up with a lightning-fast movement and looked away to hide his flustered face. “I guess Ez and Queen Aanya are gonna talk to her now.” he added, adjusting his scarf and shirt.

Rayla felt her cheeks burn as well and got herself to sit up, drying her cheeks. She was still slightly uncomfortable and a dull ache hammered her head, but she had cried the worst away already and felt more in control.

She coughed to defuse her embarrassment. “About what?”

“Politics, mainly. There are lots of things to do and figure out before the War can truly be considered over.” he responded, furrowing his brow. “This kind of things already takes time, but since all that happened yesterday can’t be ignored by the other human kingdoms...“ he sighed, defeated.

Rayla knew little of diplomacy, especially between humans, but she understood what he meant. On the Xadian side of things, they had the Sunfire General -and possibly soon-to-be Queen- and Dragon Queen supporting peace, strong of the selfless act of two human princes bringing the Dragon Prince back to his mother, but that was just the first step at best.

She perfectly knew how hard it would be to convince the rest of the elven races to end a millenary War against humans. There had always been plenty of disagreements amongst the various elven rulers, but the one thing they had in common was their perception of humans as nothing but evil, viewpoint that was bound to deteriorate even further after what Viren had done on Xadian land. Maybe Ibis could positively influence the Skywing elves due to him being a powerful and respected mage, but she had no hope of doing the same in the Silvergrove, even if they un-ghosted her.

“I feel bad for Ezran, I wouldn’t want to have to deal firsthand with all that.” she smirked to hide her worry.

“Same, but he’ll be fine. Aunt Amaya and Opeli will make sure of it. And of course I'll do all I can to help.” he smiled, a glint of pride for his little brother appearing in his concerned eyes.

Rayla stared at his back for a few seconds, lost in thoughts, but then something clicked in her mind. “Wait a second, when did you talk with Ez?” she asked, confused.

“Oh, no, I didn’t speak with him yet. Aunt Amaya came here to talk and she told me abou-”

“Your aunt WHAT?” Rayla interrupted him, her voice spiking in volume.

“Um, she came here to talk to me.” Callum repeated, slightly backing away in fear.

“When?” she asked. By slice of sky she could see outside, she couldn’t have been asleep for more than a few hours.

“Uh, uhm, an hour or so ago?”

“Couldn’t you have woken me up?” she whimpered. Not matter the situation, she did not like the idea of people she didn’t trust being around her while she slept, especially if they had tried to kill her in the past.

“Well, it wasn’t necessary since, you know, we didn’t _speak_.” he said, raising his hands defensively. “And you were sleeping so peacefully that she even said you looked cute.” he dared to say with a playful smirk. The moment after, Rayla’s pillow made rough contact with his face.

Rayla cringed both internally and externally, covering her face with her hands and hoping to disappear.

Promptly using the pillow as an improvised shield, Callum bravely peeked from behind it, his face a bit red not only from the impact. “Aaand she _knows_. That was a trap for me and I fell right into it. Sorry.” he mumbled, bracing for another reaction from her.

Rayla’s “WHAT?!” died in her throat along with whatever broke inside her. It had already been embarrassing enough when Ezran accidentally found out about them, but being discovered by his aunt out of all people was on a whole different level of embarrassment and potential danger she was not ready to deal with at the moment.

Reading her petrified distraught expression, Callum continued. “B-but it’s fine. In fact, she was pretty okay with it. As well as… surprisingly supportive.” he blurted, then arched his brows and looked away, a bit flustered. “She said she… _understands_.”

Taking back control of her body, Rayla blinked a few times, then pursed her lips as her mind caught up with the new information. She still wanted to disappear out of shame, but _that_ kinda put a few things in perspective. If anything, she didn't have to fear Callum would shunned by his loved ones, not with such a war machine on his side.

“So... yeah. I asked her not to tell it around, just to be sure, and she gets it. Though she did ask what actually happened here yesterday, before she caught me up on things.” he muttered quickly, putting the pillow up again.

Rayla shot him a death glare, then sighed. “I suppose it’s fair for them to know.” she wearily groaned, looking at her hands. “Did they find… him?” she forced herself to add.

Callum placed the pillow where it belonged and moved closer, taking her hands between his. He stalled, suddenly absorbed by the details of her knuckles, and she felt her stomach roll in a knot. A multitude of sounds started coming from the Queen’s chamber, but they were not recognizable and that somehow made her tense up further, a low panic taking hold of her heart.

“No, not yet.” he finally spoke. “He pretty much vanished. They fear it could be Claudia’s doing.” he added, his brow furrowing in anger and dismay as he said her name.

Rayla felt the nightmare creep up on her mind again, but she ignored it and held his hands firmly, trying her best to be there for him, like he had done for her all day.

Callum swallowed and looked up at her. “My aunt was also worried about how you were feeling, though she said you’ve been braver than most of the soldiers she has seen in her life.” he stated with the best smile he could do at the moment, swaying the discussion back to a less painful topic. “I think she actually likes you.”

Rayla scoffed. “Did she actually say that or are you talking through her?” she smirked, before pressing her lips on his. She could feel a hint of a smile as he silently responded.

“Do you want to go and listen to what they’re talking about?” Callum suddenly asked, after studying her hand for another while. His voice sounded more halfhearted than he probably intended.

Rayla, who was now sitting on the edge of the bed like him, shuddered at the idea of entering the Queen’s chamber after what she had seen in her nightmare.

“Not really. We can get the less-boring version later.“ she shrugged, before looking at him. “What’s on your mind?”

“I... dunno. I should be happy that we achieved our mission and survived yesterday, but… I’m also anxious. And tired.” he rambled, irritated. “And I can’t sleep because I can’t stop thinking about the nightmares I had or about everything that could go wrong from now on.”

Rayla felt her chest ache dully, but she fought against it. “Things will turn out alright, we have the Dragon Queen and Prince on our side. And probably the nightmares will go away with time.” she muttered as she leaned her forehead against his, hoping with all herself that she was right.

Callum murmured in agreement. “Just… if I’m sleeping... don’t go away without letting me know, okay?” he shyly muttered, squeezing her hand.

“That’s fair.” she scoffed, playing with his fingers. “Will you wake me up if I have another nightmare?” she added, her tone coming out more serious than she intended.

“Mmh, will you bind my arm again if I do that?” Callum grinned shyly, intertwining his fingers with hers.

She tensed up from guilt. She didn’t want to hurt him again, even by accident, but what could she do if it happened when she had no control?

“Sorry.” he pulled back slightly, his expression switching to concern again. “Was it that bad?”

“It… you did well to wake me up. I...” she gulped as the scene flashed in her mind, “Thank you.”

“Rayla… Do you want to tal-”

“What’s this, another ‘big feelings time’ in the same day?” she puffed, glaring at him with irritation.

“I guess so.” he shrugged, apologetic. “And you slept, so it doesn’t count as the same day.”

“That doesn’t make sense, but fiiine.” she groaned, rolling her eyes. “You start this time.” she warned him, pointing her finger to his chest.

She was extremely annoyed at how defenseless she had become against him, but the corners of her mouth stretched into a deeply thankful smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter ended up being far longer than I anticipated, but the more I tried to make it shorter, the more I kept adding, so here it is before it becomes eternal xD
> 
> Yeah, I can confirm that there will be 9 chapters in total, if I can stick to my notes and drafts :P  
> And yeah, the companion fic I mentioned a few chapters back is a go! It will be either a oneshot or two chapters, all from Janai's point of view.


	8. Chapter 8

Talking about their nightmares was not easy for both of them, but it went better than what Rayla expected.

Callum’s bad dreams never got to the scarring point of hers, but he said they still felt too much like real memories, to the point of him fearing they actually were. Most of the nightmares were tied to the events of the previous day in some capacity, but he also recognized elements from their whole journey. He recalled waking up at least five times, each time right as he was faced with his inability to save her. He also confessed of having had similar dreams since the day they left the Moon Nexus, but they were never as disturbingly realistic as the most recent ones nor as focused on her.

As he spoke, stammering through the hard explanations and getting teary-eyed in her comforting embrace, she couldn’t help feeling guilty about what she had said earlier that afternoon. Also, by the little details of his nightmares and how he spoke about them, she realized that their journey had a whole different impact on his mind, turning things she almost forgot about into bigger deals than they were. Admittedly, she had spent years training to handle high-stakes situations as smoothly as possible, to the point that she even forgot what it was like to feel afraid in a nightmare, at least until her recent ones where she truly had no control.

When it was her turn, Rayla went through her first nightmare with less difficulty than she expected, silently recognizing how mild it was compared to the other one. She kept going until the part of the second one where she fell into the chamber, then the fear of potentially hurting him blocked her mind.  
Hesitating, she tried to call off the ‘big feelings time’, but Callum held her close, encouraging her to continue. As she reluctantly finished, whispering not to make her voice break and hiding a few rogue tears behind his shoulder, she fully expected him to push her away at any point, but instead he held her even closer.

Becoming aware of her tears when a sob betrayed her silence, he withdrew just enough to dry her tears, then pulled her into yet another long embrace and reassured her she didn’t have to apologize for things that didn’t happen. Rayla didn’t fight back, grateful and tired, at least until he boasted about how he was such a good mage that no one could ever hurt him from that point onwards, to which she replied by softly punching him in the kidneys with the side of her fist. Point proven, they laughed and jokingly poked at each other like usual, leaving the nightmare topic behind them.

\---

The rest of the evening was fairly uneventful, though Rayla’s mood managed to improve overall.

They had remained in the room for a long while, snuggled against each other in pensive silence on the edge of the bed, until they heard the rumble of a multitude of steps, signal that the audience with Zubeia was over.

They hurriedly made sure they looked presentable despite their puffy eyes and overall weariness, then quickly walked up to the hall. Their plan was to remain just long enough to learn what was discussed, grab something to eat and overall give presence, then go back to sleep as soon as someone else gave the lead.

They entered the hall relatively unseen, as people were still coming out of the chamber, busily chatting with each other and amassing in small groups in and out of the hall. There were slightly more people than the previous night, which didn’t make it any easier on Rayla’s battered nerves. Almost without noticing, she instinctively flattened herself against the closest wall, keeping Callum between her and other people’s eyes as they waited for his brother.

Ezran came out of the chamber last and, as soon as he spotted them, his serious and slightly tired expression turned into one of his radiant smiles. He was discussing something Opeli, Corvus and Soren, but they didn’t notice his disappearance until he had already ran towards Callum and Rayla.

Judging by his sly grin, he seemed like he wanted to tease them for having slept all day -and possibly hiding away to be lovey dovey-, but once he got close enough and saw how tired their faces were, his smile dropped. He expressed his concern and remained unconvinced despite their dismissiveness, but, before he could pry further, Opeli approached them, encouraging the young King to catch the latecomers up on what was said in the chamber.

Ezran’s eyes lit up and he energetically explained that both human and elven armies would begin to head back to their territories the very next day. Most of the Sunfire elves would move back towards Lux Aurea at dawn, in order to bring back their fallen soldiers and to help their people, with the slim hope of figuring out how to restore their city. For the time being, Janai was set to remain with a small number of her best troops as a safety measure.

Later in the day, Queen Aanya would depart with her army and a few of Katolis' soldiers towards Duren. What was left of Viren's corrupted army was going to follow her, so that they could be kept in a secure place until Sunfire mages could find a remedy to the dark mage’s spell. Representatives of both races were also set to go with the other’s army, in order to initiate widespread diplomatic actions as soon as possible.

He then enthusiastically stated that Zubeia had invited him, as the King of Katolis, to remain at the Storm Spire for at least another few days, along with a small number of his people. She had asked him to wait at least for the initial answer of the elven rulers, who were bound to receive the her message within the end of the next day, and for her to fully regain her strength and take her role as Queen Regent.

Everyone of the presents had agreed on getting to the end of the War as soon as possible, so his stay at the Spire and the upcoming return of Queen Aanya without her army would serve as a gesture of trust towards the peace treaty.

After praising Ezran for his clear explanation, Opeli reprimanded Callum for not having been there as well, as Zubeia apparently requested to talk to him and Rayla at one point. Despite a worried twitch only Rayla noticed, Callum calmly stated that he had fallen asleep again after Amaya had come to talk to him and that he had just gotten up, adding that if Rayla hadn’t woken him up he wouldn’t have been there at all, since he was ‘oh so tired’ due to the previous day.

The tall woman limited herself to an inspective motherly frown, followed by a sympathetic sweet smile. She commented on how his face did look like that of someone who had just woken up from an unplanned nap, then, before leaving, mentioned that the Skywing mage wanted to talk to him as soon as possible.

By the grin he shared with Ez after she left, Rayla guessed it wasn’t the first time he lied to her to get her off his heels.

Ez had to follow Opeli, but before he went he gave a hug to his brother and then a much longer one to Rayla. Something in his face told her that he knew already what had happened, yet she felt a sting when she realized that he probably thought she would have shrugged it off like it was nothing. Deep down, she swore to herself to try even harder for him as well, as she didn’t want him to worry for her at all.

Once Callum had left to talk with Ibis, Rayla quickly sneaked in the quietest zone of the hall to avoid any contact with other people. She really just wanted to go back to sleep and she felt on the edge of a possibly violent fight-or-flight response, which could likely happen if she had to deal with more than one person at the time without Callum or Ezran at her side.

Amaya’s report of how things actually went at the pinnacle seemed to have spread, given the plenitude of stares directed at her or the few words she caught here and there, yet no one dared to get close to her.

Luckily, Rayla was simply too tired to really care about it and she completely ignored most of it, especially since she heard nothing about her _and_ Callum, other than the human’s surprising and brave use of magic to save his elf friend. Not that she wasn’t proud of her sacrifice in order to save Zym, she absolutely was since it sort of further redeemed her parents, but it would take a while for it not to be a touchy subject and she definitely didn’t want to talk about it right there and then.

The room was not as cheery as it had been the previous night, but everyone seemed to still enjoy the relatively happy moment of peace. Rayla noticed how the small groups that formed and morphed were more mixed than before, the awkwardness of a millennia of hate between elves and humans being slowly eroded by vicinity and camaraderie. People were chatting, narrating stories and exchanging jokes, as well as checking up on each other’s wounds, and she couldn’t spot any group made of a single uniform. As cross-race friendships were being formed right in front of her eyes, Rayla almost forgot how hard the fight for peace was going to be.

When Callum came back with the news that Ibis wanted to see him early in the morning to practice magic, he seemed like he had been recharged completely, which Rayla sort of envied. He then gravitated around her all evening, never turning his attention away for more than a few minutes at the time, even as he was pulled here and there to talk. After bringing her some food, every so often he would come to check on her, with the excuse of asking her something to avoid raising suspicion, even if it almost did the opposite, given the dubious look Corvus shot at them.

He really didn't have to do it, as she felt weary enough to be at temporary peace with herself, but she appreciated his attentive gestures regardless. She kept an eye on him as well, as she was, by then, used to do, saving him by catching his attention when he was cornered by an overly enthusiastic elf who wanted to know everything about his connection with the Sky Arcanum.

Amaya and Janai seemed to behave in a similar way and Rayla couldn’t help being slightly amused. The two Generals practically danced around each other all night, always with their own vaguely-humored sign language interpreters in tow, so that they could talk to each other in between dialogues with subordinates. Rayla still felt too embarrassed to pay much attention to them, but she did catch some of Janai's flustered reactions to what seemed flirty remarks that made even the translators red in their face.

When she accidentally made eye contact with him, Rayla could have sworn of having received a knowing smile by Commander Gren, but she looked away, although probably too fast to pass as nonchalant. She shrugged it off as something that was bound to happen sooner or later, given that he was the General's personal interpreter.

What worried Rayla the most, surprisingly, was Soren’s behavior. He had practically become Ezran's shadow and remained mostly quiet during the whole evening, even carrying Bait on his shoulder whenever Ez couldn’t keep him in his arms while he was addressing the concerns of various soldiers. His eyes never seemed to leave the young King, if not to give an intimidatory stare to anyone who talked out of line with him. He sure made for an amazing Crown Guard, but he didn't act like his usual goofy self at all for the whole evening, which even Rayla would have never believed if someone told her. Callum noticed as well and, even if she didn't knew him as well as him and heavily disliked him until a couple of days before, Rayla shared his concern.

Everyone’s attempts of communication with him went nowhere, only when Ezran spoke to him he seemed to relax momentarily and smile, while whenever he looked in the direction of Callum or her something in his eyes seemed off. Not that Rayla didn’t have a good guess for the reason why, but she could only feel sorry for him, since they weren’t exactly friends and she didn’t even know if or how to apologize for what had happened.

While Zubeia was resting again and Ibis performed some curative spells on her, Zym ran to the hall on his own. He flew directly on Rayla's shoulders with just a yap of anticipation, while Callum was trying to convince her to join the others as Corvus narrated some fun episodes of when he was still a rookie in Amaya’s troops.

As the elf promptly tried to bring the dragonling in her arms, he instead jumped right onto Callum’s chest and hung from his shoulders, challenging the human’s balance as he showered him in zappy kisses and cuddles. After having successfully fallen the young mage, much to the presents’ amusement, he proudly went back to Rayla, ready to do the same. However, he seemed to notice how tired and quiet she was, yapping and purring as he concernedly licked her face with much more care and less electricity than what he had reserved for Callum.

From that point on, Zym took it upon himself to cheer her up, never leaving her for the rest of the evening. He even got to the point of growling at people who stared at her too much, almost biting the hand of a Sunfire elf that accidentally bumped into her after she was -finally- dragged by Callum to listen to Corvus’ stories.

Luckily Ezran intervened and managed to calm him down a bit, after he noticed that Rayla was stuck in a never ending cycle of Zym reacting to her uneasiness by doing things that attracted even more unwanted attention to her.

At one point, towards the end of the night, Queen Aanya approached them, unaccompanied. Rayla, Callum and Ezran were perched on the steps of the hall, playing with Zym, while the ever-vigilant Soren leaned on the nearby wall with the slightest hint of a smile on his face.

Callum got up immediately to properly greet the Queen, but she told them all to remain seated. Her expression was more relaxed than the first time she spoke to them and her eyes looked much more tired than how she acted. Rayla quickly realized she must had come there, amongst the youngest in the room, to be slightly less than a Queen for a moment.

Rayla encouraged Zym to say hello to Aanya and the kid’s face lighted up immediately. As the three royal kids began playing together, both Callum and Rayla couldn’t help but silently smile. The dragonling had taken a liking to the young Queen immediately, while she and Ez looked like kids of their age for the first time that evening. The hope she felt earlier sparked with life again, as maybe it was truly possible for them to break the cycle.

After Aanya had left, giving them her regards and hoping to see them again soon, Zym settled in Rayla’s lap and fell asleep pretty fast. Soon after that, troops started leaving on dragons to go to the camps near the battlefield, so that they could rest before their early wake up call.

When Soren brought the sleepy Ezran back to their room, Callum asked Rayla if she wanted him to bring Zym back to his mother. He had noticed she had tried to not look towards the Queen’s chamber all evening, so he offered to be the one to do it. Rayla hesitated for a few seconds, the scene of the nightmare flashing in her mind, but the weight of the little dragon in her arms grounded her to reality. She turned his offer down with a shake of her head and a genuine smile, then moved towards the tunnel, walking lightly not to wake the sleeping Prince.

Admittedly, her heart had sunken at the sight of the resting Queen, but the presence of Zym was still enough to give her strength to ignore her mind. Sure of her sneaking skills, she had slowly approached Zubeia’s nest without making a sound, but then, while Rayla was right next to her head, one of the Queen’s deep rumbly breaths woke up Zym. Still half asleep, the dragonling decided he wanted to sleep closer to his mother and, after loudly yawning in the elf’s face and licking her cheek, he jumped out of Rayla’s arms.

The noise awoke Zubeia and Rayla backed away while bowing, both in reverence and embarrassment. The Queen’s eye opened, but it focused on her baby who had made his bed in a longer tuft of her mane. Zym purred and the Queen responded in kind with a deep yet tender growl.

Rayla remained still, hoping not to interrupt the moment and possibly not being seen, but the Queen’s eye focused on her next. Rayla’s moment of panic was cut short when Zubeia quietly said “Thank you, Dragonguards.” with a grateful smile. Her eye looked above the elf before coming back to her, then closed as her breath slowed down to the previous pace again, a trace of the smile still present on her draconic lips.

Once Rayla remembered how to breathe, she turned around and found Callum at the top of the stairs, right where the Queen had looked. Her shocked confusion was met by his proud -and slightly surprised- smile, which proved to be contagious.

She walked up the stairs without a sound and took his hand, her heart bursting with genuine happiness for the first time that day.

\---

Rayla leaned on the wall outside of the cave and stretched her limbs, enjoying the warmth of the morning sun and the view. A light breeze formed shifting cracks in the clouds below the peak and she could glimpse the vague shapes of the landscape far far below. A distant golden shine traced the path of the army moving back to Lux Aurea.

She had woken up with a bit of a headache and sore eyes, but Rayla definitely felt more rested and far less sensitive than the day before. Solid sleep hadn’t exactly been an option for her, but given the average quality of sleep of their month of journey, she didn’t feel like complaining. For her, interrupted sleep surely beat the uncomfortable feeling of sleeping on the saddle of a flying Moon Phoenix or on a freaking boat.

Between the times she had been woken up by Callum and the times his distressed movements made her do the same for him, she couldn’t even count how many times she had fallen back asleep. She was thankful that, in all that, they had somehow managed not to wake up Ezran, Bait and Soren and, most of all, that they both had avoided new nightmares for that night. In fact, the little snippets she could remember were confused and just out of her mind’s reach, so they didn’t really bother her. As much as she disliked the whole ‘big feelings time’ thing, she begrudgingly recognized it probably helped her process the previous day’s nightmares.

They had woken up pretty early, yet somehow Ezran and Soren had already left the room, which was surprising, even if the latter had removed the noisiest parts of his armor.

Rayla hoped that the Crown Guard hadn’t looked in the direction of their very close beds at all, given that her hand was still gripping Callum’s sheet and a lock of her hair was between his fingers when she had woken up.

Callum shrugged it off, saying that Soren was so bad at romantic stuff that he wouldn’t be able to connect the dots unless they kissed right in front of him, but she still would have preferred not risking it. Not that it mattered much, since sooner or later people were going to find out about them and the thing would spiral out of control on its own, but...

The roar of a dragon shook Rayla from her thoughts.

Pyrrah and two golden dragons appeared from the clouds. They widely circled the peaks, heavy with passengers and cargo held in their front legs and mouth. The other dragons had flown home early during the night after carrying people down to the battlefield, but those two had remained to serve their Queen and Prince along with Pyrrah.

When the enormous creatures landed on the decorated floor one after the other, Rayla instinctively held herself on the rocks. As much as she had gotten over her bad dreams, she still had that annoying fear of heights to deal with and being swept away by a dragon’s wing was the worst way to face it, despite how impossible it was to happen given the distance between her and their landing spots.

Forcing herself to snap out of it, Rayla waved her hand at the Sunfire elves and humans that dismounted from the dragons’ back, receiving kind smiles and greetings from them. As the two golden dragons took off again following Pyrrah’s lead, two Twin-Tailed Inferno-Tooth Tigers arrived at the Peak as well.

The Golden Knight and General Amaya dismounted quickly, grinning and shaking their heads at the clumsy efforts of Commander Gren and Kazi to stop their mount from turning around on the spot in an attempt at nuzzling the human. Rayla was surprised at how docile and affectionate such a formidable and dangerous creature was with him and amusedly watched as the creature attempted to groom him once he dismounted.

However, when she noticed the still-grinning Amaya looking at her, Rayla instantly felt a jolt of embarrassment and awkwardness that made her look elsewhere. She focused on the people entering the cave, who were carefully walking way out of reach of the playful Sun creature.

“Hey there!” Gren spoke up, as he approached her next to a particularly radiant Amaya. “How’s it going here? Where are my nephews?”

“H-hi!” Rayla stammered, taken by surprise. She did her best to quickly clear her mind and act coolly. “Callum is up on the pinnacle, practicing Sky magic with Ibis. Ez is in the Queen’s chamber with Zym, Bait and Soren. Last I’ve seen, everyone else was still in the common room.”

“Did the Dragon Queen want something from them?” asked Janai, as she caught the massive feline by the reins and pulled it back before it could lick Gren’s head, who was busy signing to Amaya.

“Not really, Ezran just wanted to spend time with Zym while waiting for you.” Rayla shrugged, trying not to laugh at Gren’s expression as he turned around. “Did Queen Aanya leave already?” she inquired, sure that her departure was set much later in the morning.

“Yes, about a dozen of scouts from this zone’s villages and cities have arrived during the night, after they’ve caught wind of the battle and the armies’ movements.” Janai explained, struggling to keep the cuddly beast at bay while Gren petted its muzzle. “They mostly understood what happened, but in order to avoid any complication, a few of my troops volunteered to escort Queen Aanya and her army to the border, so they departed earlier than planned.”

“Speaking of which, we need to report to the Queen about it.” Kazi interpreted what Amaya signed, taking over Gren's role, sicne he was too busy scratching the neck of the purring Tiger that was standing almost over him.

Janai managed to pull the beast away and bring it inside along with her own, who had been patiently waiting nearby and meekly followed after a simple whistle.

Gren and Kazi followed suit, initiating a conversation about the winged felines and how best to deal with them.

As Amaya passed by Rayla, she stopped and put a hand on her shoulder, firmly gripping it. Rayla tensed up in surprise, but a spark of confidence made her look at her straight in the eyes. She wasn’t going to back down in front of her, she had no reason to.

To her surprise, she only found a knowing smirk that caught her off guard, making her blush slightly. The smirk morphed into a softer smile and her eyes didn’t hide her empathetic understanding nor her worry for the young elf, as well as a gleam of... solidarity?

Rayla hesitated, then replied with a shy yet thankful smile. In a way, she was glad they couldn’t talk right then, but in that moment she somehow felt understood already by the battle-hardened General.

Amaya patted her on the shoulder with a big friendly -and knowing- grin on her face, then followed the others in the hall, leaving Rayla momentarily stranded in her thoughts.

As the confusion dwindled, Rayla began to think about how in the past month everything had been turned upside down in her world, but soon a sudden thundering sound made her flinch.

RIght when she looked up, she saw a second much more powerful lightning coming from the pinnacle, reaching way past the other peak of the Spire. The sound was much louder as well and echoed in the cave.

She leaned on the wall again, a light smirk crossing her face. Even if Callum had managed to unlock an Arcanum, he would have to train for a very long time before his spells could reach their full potential. Full potential that changed already from elf to elf and from spell to spell, so who knew how much a human could push the limit without a Primal Stone. He surely had improved his magic skills immensely during their journey and she was proud of him for that, but part of her couldn’t wait to tease him about it later.

As the lightnings began again, she almost wanted to sneak up to the pinnacle to see how he was doing, but her stomach sank when she realized she’d have to go to the place where it all had happened. And it had happened for real, unlike all the still-vivid images of the nightmares that continued roaming her mind.

She sighed, while a kindling of worry for Callum ignited in the back of her mind. Hopefully he was able to focus solely on the lesson and not think about what had happened right there.

Maybe she’d go there another time, when she wasn’t alone during the climb and when she wouldn’t risk being accidentally zapped by going there unannounced.

Rayla suddenly felt panic rising at the idea of being alone with her thoughts for possibly all morning. Sure, she could go and hang around with Ez and the few people she more or less knew, but they were all in the Queen’s chamber and she really wanted to wait for Callum in case Zubeia wanted to talk with her at the first occasion. And what would that be about? Her -their?- new role as Dragonguard? Their relationship? Or… her parents?

Her chest hurt slightly. When Callum had told her they were defeated by Viren, he couldn’t explain what had happened to them exactly, only that the dark mage had casted a spell as he approached them and they disappeared into thin air.

She still hadn’t told him, but even if she had confirmation that they were gone and had time to grieve them properly during her time alone the previous day, something inside her kept screaming that they were still out there, somewhere. It was dark magic after all, anything could be conceived from such evil and lack of care for other creatures’ lives. She felt like she was missing something, maybe a small detail or a connection to something important, but whatever it was, it kept eluding her.

“Hey, um, could you keep this royal rascal here for a bit?”

Rayla winced, snapping back to reality. Soren was standing next to her, barely managing to hold a very agitated Zym in his arms. Apparently her thoughts had been loud enough not to hear them coming, which deeply annoyed her.

The dragonling tried to climb on Soren’s shoulder. “People are trying to -ouch- discuss important stuff with the Queen, but he -ouch- won’t stop acting up since the thunders have started.” the young man continued, grabbing the Prince under his armpits to put a stop to his squirming. It clearly didn’t work, as Zym started flapping his wings and yapping in his face.

“Oh, sure.” chuckled Rayla as she caressed the back of the dragonling, calming him down almost immediately.

“Thank you!” Soren exasperatedly groaned, placing Zym in her arms and receiving a zappy lick on his fingers. He wheezed, glad to finally be out of reach of his shocks.

Rayla diverted her attention towards the cuddly dragon, who placed his chin on her shoulder and started purring, although without stopping his wings and tail from thrashing around whenever a new thunder cracked.

The Crown Guard stalled, scratching his head awkwardly and looking everywhere but towards her.

Vaguely bothered by it, Rayla side-eyed him for a while, but he failed to notice her increasingly skewed frown.

She took a deep breath, accepting the fact that she had to initiate the conversation she dreaded to have.

“Listen, I’m-”

“No no, you listen to me.” he interrupted her, raising his hands. “I’m sorry for what my fa-... for what Viren forced you to do to save the Prince.” he said, dropping his head and clenching his fists.

Rayla totally didn’t expect him to be the one apologizing. Taken off guard, she remained quiet, not knowing what to say. Zym stopped moving in response to her sudden stiffness.

“I noticed how you behaved yesterday, you weren’t... yourself.” he gestured awkwardly in her direction. “At first I thought you were simply recovering from the fight with him and all his weird spells, but then I heard… that.” he muttered, still not looking at her.

“Soren-” she tried to interrupt him. Zym turned his head to look at him.

“No, I know you hate me, but if there’s something I can do to help, please tell me. I don’t want to bother you or anyone else, I’ll even disappear if I ha-” he kept going, head low.

“Calm down!” she raised her voice. “It’s not your fault.” she stressed, backed by a whimper from Zym.

“It… kinda is. My family was the cause of everything that happened.” he muttered, his voice almost breaking.

Rayla cursed mentally. Was she really the one who had to hold a ‘big feelings time’ with this guy? Of course right when Callum was busy, too.

She sighed, gathering all the good will she could find in herself. “What you did to save Ezran was more than enough to prove you’re better than them.” she stated, rather dryly. “Don’t… don’t let your family’s mistakes drag you down.” she softly repeated the words Callum had told her.

Soren finally looked up at her with a mix of expressions she couldn’t decipher, but the sum looked somewhat positive.

"Ezran says no one is blaming me and that I shouldn’t worry, but I wanted to... clear the air, at least with you. You’re the most affected one and I still feel responsible, so I hope you can accept my apology.” he said, his voice now more confident and serious. Then his eyebrows arched and his lips pouted when he looked at her, making him lose any seriety he had.

Rayla smirked. “It’s okay, don’t worry.” she confirmed. “Ezran is right, plus from what he said he would still be stuck in a prison cell without your help back in Katolis.”

“Yeah… I guess he’s right.” Soren muttered, scratching the side of his nose.

Rayla looked down at her feet and her brow furrowed. “Besides, no one here is completely blameless, not even me or the Queen herself.” she said, before Zym yapped right in her ear. “Aside from you!” she quickly corrected herself, receiving a zappy kiss as thanks for the recognition.

“Not Ezran and Callum too?” Soren asked, with a mix of disbelief and genuine curiosity.

“Ezran yes, but Callum did use dark magic…” Rayla whispered annoyedly, “... once.” she narrowed and rolled her eyes.

Soren shuddered and quickly blinked, as if to sweep away his memories of that one time.

“But didn’t he save you that one time… from me... and Claudia?” he muttered, looking away awkwardly. “Also, yeah, I’m… sorry about that too. You… You're lucky to have him. A-as a friend, I mean." he heartfeltly added, stumbling on the last part.

Rayla choked on her breath for a second. "Oh! Yeah. I know. I know." she mumbled, unsure of how to react, other than running away. She tried to look as normal as possible, but she couldn’t ignore the sensation that she was redder in her cheeks than what she should have been. Zym looked at her, tilting his head.

"Like, yes, he also did save you the other day and all and I would have never expected such a wimp to be able to do that, but what I mean is that he's a really good friend to have." Soren rambled, luckily looking away again from her very unconvincing casual expression.

“Mmm mmm!” she nodded, looking in the extremely interesting opposite direction, which happened to be the wall. Zym imitated the sound she made with an amused growl.

"I just wish I realized that sooner..." Soren sighed, his head low again.

“I… I think he considers you a friend just as well.” she muttered, before Zym jumped from her arms onto his shoulders, determined on not allowing more sad faces around him.

Soren yelped and began a dance to get the dragonling off himself, wincing and recoiling at every zappy kiss.

“And I’m fairly sure Zym does too.” she snorted as she moved out of the way.

“Zym, I owe you big time for that.” Rayla whispered to the dragonling once Soren managed to return him to her and headed back for the Queen’s chamber.

He let out a chirpy growl in response and let his tongue hang out of his bright smile.

The thunders had stopped sometimes during the conversation with Soren, she wasn’t sure when, but Zym was still revved up by it and wouldn’t stay still.

Rayla had to spend a good hour playing with the dragonling before he would lay down on her lap and rest. She had rarely spent time playing with him during the journey, it was usually something he did with Ezran, Bait or Callum, while she kept constant watch on them. She always sort of felt bad whenever she had to quiet him down when it wasn’t the right time to play, yet Zym would often come to her to cuddle or sleep during rest times. In that moment it felt good to spend some fully relaxed time with him, especially since it provided the distraction she needed to keep her thoughts away from Viren and her parents.

As Rayla was absentmindedly attempting to braid the sleeping Zym’s messy mane, her eye caught the shape of something drifting down from above. She focused on it just in time to see it be carried by the light breeze off the cliff. Was it… a feather?

She looked up and quickly made the connection: Ibis and Callum must have been testing the arm-wings spell. The feather looked silver-ish, so it must have been Ibis’.

A slight sense of unease took over her. She trusted Callum’s abilities and surely Ibis was even more trustworthy, but not being the one in charge of preventing his clumsiness from putting him in harm’s way made her somewhat anxious. Not that she had any way of intervening if something went awry during a test flight, but she was so used to that role that she felt guilty.

Regardless, she really didn’t want to think about that possibility, so she kept herself occupied by trying to untangle parts of a dried leaf that somehow had been stuck deep into Zym’s mane for who knows how long.

Suddenly, a shadow passed above them, waking up Zym who looked up immediately. Following his stare, Rayla saw that Ibis was flying in circles around the pinnacle, moving effortlessly before changing direction abruptly or doing some maneuver.

Zym began flapping his wings, as if wanting to take off as well, but Rayla intervened placing her arms around him.

“Oh no, I’ve been told to keep you here, so you’re staying _here_.” she scolded him with a smile on her face, ignoring his begging whimper and the annoyed yet gentle tail whacks she was receiving on her arm and side.

After a while, Callum joined his teacher in the exercises. Rayla sank through the floor every time he disappeared from her sight, but she couldn’t get herself to get up to move to a point where she could have a better view. Zym, on the other hand, growled excitedly and yapped every time he appeared, trying to sneak out of his confinement without hurting her, clearly set on joining the flight.

Callum seemed to struggle to maintain speed and altitude initially, but, despite her worry, he got the hang of it pretty soon. His movements weren’t as precise and graceful as Ibis’, yet that seemed good enough for Rayla’s nerves.

The two winged mages landed on the pinnacle and didn’t reappear for a few minutes. Just when Rayla almost thought she’d soon see them walk down the stairs, they both dived from the pinnacle. Ibis descended and pulled up after a fairly exhibitionist roll, while Callum needed a few extra meters before he was able to pull up as well. The spectacle did a number in Rayla’s stomach and heart.

Taking advantage of the elf’s distraction, Zym lept from her lap and took off, trying to reach them even if they were already far past the other peak.

Despite the still-weak lift his wings could give, he had moved quicker than Rayla expected and she instinctively shot up and darted after him.

“No! Zym! Come back down!” she ordered him with a stern voice, hands up in the air in the vain effort of reaching and catching him.

The little dragon obeyed with a whimper, likely due to how he was already tired thanks to their playtime together, landing near the central arch of the bridge. He turned towards her, his eyes expressing pure heartbreak over his abandonment, before looking again in the direction the mages went.

Rayla breathed a sigh of relief, taking a few steps towards him, but before she could tell Zym they were coming back, she realized that she was, in fact, standing on the bridge as well.

On one hand, this was good! Maybe it meant she didn’t have such a profound fear of heights like she did with water deeper than her hips, maybe Callum was right and she could just get over it by trying again. And, as a bonus, she did actually get Zym to stop before he went after the two winged mages, now barely spottable dots on the horizon.

On the other hand, she was stuck, completely frozen, on a bridge suspended at an altitude she didn’t really want to precisely know in that moment, with no good-with-words human available to guide her back on solid ground. Human that was likely very wrong about the whole “trying” thing.

“Z-zym, come here.” she muttered, trying to sound assertive despite the vibration in her voice. She tried to keep her eyes on Zym and keep herself as steady as possible, but her knees really just wanted to collapse.

The little dragon turned towards her again, holding a brown feather in his mouth, and sat there, making the squeaky sound Rayla learned to mean “pick me up”.

“You’re joking, right?” Rayla muttered. Zym simply stared at her, with his usual adorable face, replying to her groan with another chirpy squeak.

Gathering all the courage and sense of duty she could find in her scrambled mind, Rayla went for it and took the first step forward. She wasn’t as twitchy as the day before, but her heart was still pounding and each step felt like she was dragging the entire mountain behind her.

Eventually, keeping herself focused on him and mentally cursing all the way, she reached Zym at her own pace. When she crouched down to pick him up, her legs felt like steel, but yet again Zym’s presence had a calming effect on her and she managed to get back up.

“Ok, now we slowly go back.” she whispered to him and began the trek back with just a bit more confidence than before. He growled affectionately, with the feather still in his mouth.

Rayla wasn’t even back to where she started when the dragonling lost his patience. He started flapping his wings again, pulling her towards the Spire. She stumbled, panicky grabbing onto Zym’s body, and pretty much ran the rest of the way to the solid floor, dragged and guided by him.

Once she stopped and gasped for air, the dragonling settled back into her shaking arms. She had no time to get angry at him, as he landed one big kiss on her cheek and looked at her with the most innocent face that said “you’re welcome”.

Rayla inhaled deeply and recollected herself, brow extremely furrowed and eyes closed, then rapidly stomped towards the spot she was sitting before, trying to out-shake her still-present trembling at every step.

She sat down and placed the dragonling on her lap again. “Done, I don’t owe you anymore now.” she stated, leaning against the rocky wall. “And now we stay here, nice and composed, and wait for that dumb human to return.” she sternly ordered, looking him straight into his big puppy eyes.

Next thing she knew, Zym viciously attacked her with zappy kisses. Even scowling was outlawed in the Prince’s opinion, apparently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for taking so long with this chapter, I ended up with little time to write and got stuck at one point, going back to add more and more details and scenes instead of going forward ;;  
> I hope I'll be faster with the last, but I can't promise because it'll likely be packed with stuff as well ;;


	9. Chapter 9

Rayla had expected to see the two mages come back soon, but peace reigned supreme on the Storm Spire and she lost track of time. The only disturbance had been Pyrrah passing by shortly after they had left, carrying an unidentified creature in her maw for the Queen’s lunch, then nothing else.

She had almost fallen asleep, slowly fidgeting with the brown feather between her fingers, cozy in the warmth of the sun and of the snoring dragonling on her lap, when all of a sudden the latter jolted from his nap with an alerted squeak. This time, her reaction was not fast enough and Zym managed to leap out of her reach before she could stop him, running up the stairs while yapping excitedly.

“Great,” she muttered with a slightly groggy voice, rubbing the back of her hands on her eyes, “first the bridge, now the stairs.” she added annoyedly, getting up despite the extreme dread tied to the task ahead of her.

Rayla’s annoyance, however, was short lived. Before she could start tussling with her fear in order to get herself to follow Zym, she heard the faint faraway sound of flapping wings. She looked up just in time to see both apprentice and mentor land on the pinnacle.

A wave of relief and excitement to see Callum hit her right away, then a second wave of doubts struck her when she looked at the stairs again. Should she wait there until they came down on their own? Should she try to catch up to Zym and greet them? Would she even be able to do that without crumbling on herself?

Rayla bit her lip and crossed her arms, undecided and conflicted. It wasn’t even the fear of falling that stopped her -objectively the wide stairs were literally rock solid and really hard to fall from-, she just didn’t want to go the pinnacle again so soon.

Of course she wanted to make sure Zym was okay as well, and she would have liked to show Callum that she was at least trying to get over it all, but at the same time she really didn’t feel like showing her fears to Ibis nor to whoever might decide to pass by when she had to eventually come down.

Rayla quickly went to peek inside the hall. No one was in the room and, from the relative silence, Zubeia seemed to have gone back to rest after her meal, so the others had probably gone to the common room. Weighing her options, Rayla breathed in deeply and turned around, only to see Ibis walk down the stairs.

“Oh, hello! If you’re wondering where Prince Azymondias went, he came up to the pinnacle just now.” the Skywing elf said contently, smiling at her. “Callum and I brought something back from our trip, I suggest you come to the quarters before they’re gone.” he added while on the last steps, lifting a bag that looked quite heavy and gave a sweet aroma that Rayla vaguely recognized.

She decided to play along. “Oh, yes, thank you! I was precisely wondering where his highness had gone!” she grinned, maybe a bit unconvincingly. “I’ll wai-, um, go get Zym and Callum, then we’ll join you!” she quickly said, forcing herself to walk up on the first steps despite her own mental screams. She kept her act up until Ibis crossed the entrance to the hall, then she returned to the solid floor in a blink.

Rayla sighed, waiting for her heartbeat to calm down. Even just the act of pretending to walk up there had sent her into a panic deeper than what she felt for water. Guilt followed suit, as she wanted to make sure Callum was actually fine with being up there on his own.

She had just started tapping her foot impatiently, trying to get herself to decide, when she heard Callum’s laughter and Zym’s playful growls.

A few moments later, she felt her face light up with a smile as she finally saw them. Callum was doing his best not fall down the stairs, moving slowly while Zym twisted on his shoulders, attempting to move from one side to the other, chasing the heavy bag the poor boy was desperately trying to keep away from him.

Rayla couldn’t help but giggle, catching Zym’s attention. The dragonling took off from Callum’s shoulder, smacking his face with his wing in the process.

“Rayla!” he exclaimed with the biggest smile she saw on his face in days.

“Hey there, how did the lesson go?” she replied, catching Zym as he reached her, preceding Callum who had practically glided down the stairs as well. She hadn’t seen him that gleefully excited since they had first stepped into Xadia's forests.

“Rayla!” he repeated, almost shouting and jumping up and down on his feet like a little kid. “Ibis taught me how to fly properly! He even says I’m pretty good! Can you believe it?! And OH MAN you sure can NOT believe what we saw! We went over this huge forest and we landed into this glade full of amazing flowers of all types! And I’m almost sure I spotted an unicorn far away in the shade of the fruit trees?!” he continued, unable to stand still.

Zym, enticed by the excitement of the human, had jumped from her arms and started bouncing around him, still sneakily trying to get to the bag.

Rayla couldn’t help but smile at his extreme excitement for every little thing related to Xadia and magic. Seeing him so happy and untouched by all they had been through was always wonderful, so much that it made her forget about it all too for a brief time. The morning spent apart had done nothing but emphasize how much his presence had a positive impact on her... and how much she loved him.

Rayla placed one of her hands on Callum’s arm and he stopped half sentence to stare at her, his mouth forgotten open in a smile. Her thumb gently grazed the newly-applied pigment on his skin, this time a quiet and proud fondness taking the place of the terrorizing memories.

“I missed ya.” she whispered, before pressing her lips on his for a moment.

Callum’s face became a few shades redder, just like Rayla’s, but before he could say anything, Zym jumped on his shoulder, interrupting the moment and making them bump their foreheads together.

“Zym!” shouted Callum, before turning to her completely red. “I’m sorry, did it hurt?” he whimpered in embarrassment.

“I’m fine.” she chuckled, stepping away as Zym nuzzled the boy’s forehead to apologize. “Come on, I’m sure Ezran will want to hear about what you’ve seen as well.” she said, pulling him towards the entrance, her fingers firmly intertwined with his for as long as they could get away with it.

\---

Rayla had decided to try and be friendly with the other guests at the Storm Spire, both for Callum’s sake and because she couldn’t bear to be alone with her thoughts again the next time he or Ezran were busy. As much as socializing wasn’t her favorite activity, she was set on trying to appear more 'alive' than what she had been so far.

When they entered the common room, the smell of cooked food made Rayla remember she hadn’t eaten anything at all since the morning.

Not everyone was there at the moment, since a few of the Sunfire soldiers were still involved in the continuous search for the two dark mages and others were taking turns sleeping in the bedrooms below, but the big room was nonetheless pretty busy. Rayla could count about a dozen of humans, including those she knew by name and, near the kitchen he was tending to, the jolly baker she didn’t quite catch the name of. She recognized a few of the Sunfire elves, but she didn’t really know who any of them were, besides Janai and the only non-soldier, Kazi.

A few of the presents were helping the baker in the kitchen, but most of them had started gathering around a table covered with the colorful fruits the Skywing elf had just brought back. When he spotted them, Ibis gestured Callum to come to add the contents of his bag to it.

Callum looked for a moment in Rayla’s direction and she nudged him in the mage’s direction, picking Zym from his shoulders to free him from the added weight.

Zym was growling and looking around, excited but also overstimulated by the noise and new smells. When Rayla moved from the entrance to let an elf pass and crouched to place the squirming dragonling on the ground before he accidentally hurt her, she noticed Ezran running towards them and calling their names.

Right away, the kid offered Zym one of the fruits he was carrying in his arms. Needless to say, the snack was very much appreciated by the dragonling, to the point he went on a mission to find more, leaving Ez alone with Rayla.

When the young King turned towards her, he raised his arm a bit, stating he didn’t know which fruit was her favorite so he had brought one of each over.

Rayla could tell Ezran was trying his best to act normally around her, but she could easily read the worry in the young King’s eyes and she felt another sting in her chest. She promptly pulled him into a quick buddy hug, telling him that any of the ones he had were more than fine. Then, after picking the first fruit her hand found, she promised to the young King that she was going to show him and his brother the place where her fave fruit grew the next time they had a chance to go on a trip through Xadia together.

Ezran beamed at the prospect of actually visiting Xadia and he hugged her tight with his free arm, his worry fading as a bright genuine smile took over his face.

They sat together on a bench to eat the fruits and he started telling Rayla about how nice Zubeia had been to him that morning. Callum joined them shortly after, carrying a now-full Zym on his shoulders and a tray the baker had handed him on his way there, much to Ezran’s delight.

At some point Soren and Amaya had placed all the available chairs around the table where Corvus, Gren, Janai and Kazi were already sitting, then invited the kids to sit with them. Zym took it as an invitation to jump in the center of the table and go say hi to everyone in his reach, earning the occasional scritch or pet by a brave enough hand.

Rayla initially wanted to quietly listen to the conversations between the others about what had happened after Soren had freed Ezran from the prison, but the latter ended up getting Rayla involved in it when he asked her and Callum to explain in detail what they had done while he was back in Katolis.

The two of them shared a tense look, before Callum took the lead with the story of how Zym flew for the first time while they were crossing the Moonstone Path. She immediately felt relieved she didn’t have to speak, but when she corrected some inaccuracies about their encounter with Sol Regem -specifically about how she did _not_ almost get burned to a crisp by him-, she found herself continuing the story. She had almost frowned at him when he played around the issue of dark magic with the retired Dragon King, but she had let it slide, as that was not the place to discuss such a delicate topic.

Having been with her back turned towards the center of the room for the whole time she was caught in the narration, Rayla didn’t notice that they had gathered a bit of a crowd around them, humans and elves alike, all curious to know more about how the Dragon Prince got all the way to the Storm Spire. Only when Zym jumped over her shoulder to greet an unsuspecting Opeli, Rayla did realize that a dozen more people were listening behind her.

Uneasiness took a hold of her and she probably became paler for a few seconds, but luckily everyone’s attention was on Opeli’s shrieky reaction to the overly-affectionate dragon. If she was talking to Callum’s closest friends and family only, maybe it would have been different, but in that setting there was a lot she didn’t want to talk about.

Taking a deep breath while everyone laughed under their breath at Opeli trying to regain her composure after Callum had caught and placed Zym on his lap, Rayla decided to completely skip over her Ghosting and most of their time in the Silvergrove area. Luckily she hadn’t gotten to that point yet, so no one would know.

She went from talking about Callum’s fun shenanigans in the Adoraburrs’ meadow to his impeccable Moonstrider riding skills, passing their acquirement of mounts as a favor from a friend of hers that they had met along the way.

Callum had shot her a vaguely confused look for a moment, but he quickly connected the dots and jumped straight to his defense against her unfair judgement of his skills, pretending to be offended. Soren interjected with a few anecdotes about Callum’s past training experiences, which Rayla had no issue believing.

Overall they ended up going back and forth on fun Zym-centric events, like the accident with the toot-lips and the time he got scared by a passing bird and Rayla had to go retrieve him up a tree he was then too scared to come down from.

As if under an unspoken agreement, they completely avoided any event or reference to their then-awkward relationship as well, which Rayla was thankful for because that would have been too much to deal with at the time. That and the fact that any sane person would have smacked Callum for his terrible “Earthblood” disguise or even just how he reacted to her first kiss, so maybe mentioning any of that stuff in a full room was not a good idea, even just for his safety.

After Zym decided it was Janai’s turn to be annoyed by his adorable self, the conversation drifted towards how the Katolis’ General had ended up tagging along the Golden Knight and her troops, much to Janai’s poorly concealed fluster and Amaya’s openly flirtatious amusement.

Knowing what she knew, Rayla was having a hard time keeping a straight face, unsurprisingly just like most of the people still in the room. Those who didn’t heavily suspect it already quickly ended up with inquisitive and confused expressions, while Corvus and Gren continuously exchanged gleeful knowing looks with each other whenever the latter didn’t have to interpret -and likely tone down- his superior’s words or sign for her.

Subtle was clearly not in Amaya’s dictionary and Janai tried her best to keep herself composed, her dark skin barely hiding her furious blush whenever the General would move too close or touch her, all while poor Kazi next to her slowly inched away as if to get away from an increasingly hotter flame.

Ibis, who had quietly walked out of the room at some point to bring the medicinal herbs he had gathered to Zubeia, appeared at the entrance while Gren was arguing against saying out loud a particularly bad joke Amaya insisted was fine, much to her nephew giggly embarassment. After apologizing for his interruption, the Sky mage gestured Rayla and Callum to go upstairs.

They were summoned by Queen Zubeia.

\---

As soon as they were far enough up the stairs to be out of sight, Callum grabbed Rayla’s hand. It was shaking and she was far too aware of it.

“Are you okay?” he apprehensively whispered, trying to get in front of her to gauge her expression.

“Yeah, sure, why wouldn’t I be?” she blurted in a squeaky voice, rolling her eyes. “I’ve only been dreading this moment since they told us about it yesterday, what’s not to be fine about it?”

“I’m anxious as well, but if it was a bad thing she wouldn’t have waited this long to talk to us, wouldn’t she?” he smiled, trying to hide the quivering uncertainty in his voice.

“I hope so.” she grunted. “I’m just afraid I’ll screw things up somehow.”

“You won’t, don’t worry.” he muttered, as they walked up the steps in front of the tunnel, from which they could see the top of the Queen’s crown of horns and mane. “Should we…?” he whispered, easing his grip on her hand, but she held his tighter.

“Together.” Rayla whispered, then took in a long, deep breath.

They crossed the entrance, hand in hand.

Zubeia laid awake waiting for them, resting comfortably in a more relaxed position than the one they saw her in the past days. The afternoon light, bouncing off the walls of the chamber, casted colorful glimmers and shadows on her figure, making her appear almost otherworldly.

The Queen raised her head when they came into her view and Rayla’s breath froze inside her chest as she mechanically bowed to her.

“Welcome.” Zubeia greeted them warmly. “Please, come forward.” she added with a kind smile on her draconic lips. Her voice was more vibrant than when they last spoke to her, a clear sign that Ibis’ care and treatments were working, and Rayla could have sworn to have heard a hint of amusement in her voice.

Since they hadn't been zapped on the spot, Rayla felt the tension slowly melt away from her shoulders, but she didn’t allow herself to relax as they began to walk down the stairs, still hand in hand.

The Queen waited patiently for them to get in front of her, then took a deep breath, closing her eyes. The hair on Rayla’s neck instinctively stood up when something in dragoness’ expression changed, yet she was still calm and gentle as before when she looked at them again.

“This isn’t the reason why I asked to speak privately with you, but I wanted to thank you both again for all you did to bring my baby back to me. I shall forever be in your debt.” she began, the air vibrating with her words.

Rayla took the initiative and slightly bowed her head, gulping to fight the nervousness that was settling in her stomach. “It was a honor, my Queen. It was a journey of redemption for what our families did and a necessary step towards peace.“ she declared, slightly raising their joined hands.

Zubeia smiled as she nodded, then her expression turned serious. “I do, however, have a question… Why do I smell death on you, human?” she grievously said, turning towards Callum.

There was no anger in the Queen’s voice or stance, but Rayla’s heart skipped a few beats and she winced as her whole body tensed in fight-or-flight response. She was not physically nor mentally ready for a repeat of their encounter with Sol Regem, but there was no doubt in her that she would oppose even the Queen of the Dragons if it was necessary to keep Callum out of harm’s way.

Callum had tensed up worse than her, she didn’t need to look at him to know, but she did anyway when his hand suddenly went cold and left hers. He was as pale as the Moon herself and she could see him shaking, all the confidence he seemed to have a few minutes before gone completely, leaving nothing but guilt and terror in his widened eyes pointed at the ground. He had slightly cracked his mouth open, as if to say something, but his lips were trembling too much and no sound came out.

Rayla had expected him to be rightfully scared, but not to that point. He had been almost brave when confronting Sol Regem, she couldn’t understand where all of that was gone. Despite her confusion, seeing him like that made something snap inside of her.

She stepped forward and defensively extended her arm in front of him. “If I may, your Grace, he was forced to use dark magic _one_ time to save Pyrrah and me.” she replied in his stead, trying her best to keep her voice as calm and respectful as possible, meeting his distressed eyes as he looked up to her. “As much as I detest the practice, I can't deny that it was the only way.” she added, raising her head in the direction of Zubeia after gathering all the courage she had in her.

In that moment, she felt ready for any reaction… But the eyes of the Queen took her off guard. There was truly no anger in them, only sadness and... perhaps compassion?

“Is it true?” she asked, her voice lower and somewhat resigned.

“I-...” he stumbled, still in understandable fear. Rayla took his hand again, trying to give him courage.

“Y-y-yes, your Majesty.” he finally stammered, then took a deep breath. “I… I never wanted to use it, a-and I had no idea it would leave such a mark on me, but... it was all I could do back then.” he continued, trying to best to keep his voice from quivering. “I suffered its effects and somehow almost dying from it allowed me to make a connection to the Sky Arcanum and to use its magic, but I hope I'll never have to deal with dark magic again.”

Zubeia’s smile took both of them off guard. “Very well. That’s all I needed to know.” she said, not trying to keep the sadness away from her voice or eyes. “I don’t condone the use of dark magic, but I can’t ignore that there is blood of your relatives on my claws as well, nor that there was supposed to be more, so I won’t pretend to be faultless. Your intent was pure and, in the end, brought back to me my child, so, this time, consider yourself pardoned.”

Callum let his shoulders relax as she spoke, yet a faint discomfort settled in his brow at the mention of the assassination. Guilt hit Rayla full force again, but he held onto her hand when she winced.

“I… Thank you.” he muttered, bowing his head.

“Which brings me to the real reason I called you here.” the dragoness continued.

Callum and Rayla managed to exchange with each other a brief smile of relief, then turned their attention back to her.

The Queen’s massive body shifted slightly and she moved her head closer to them. "As you know, the dark mage's body has yet to be found, while the other dark mage, who I'm told is his daughter, has disappeared." she said, a sibilant growl backing her words.

Callum's face had finally gotten back some of its color, but it lost it all again as his eyes darkened at the mention of Claudia.

"This fact makes me worry greatly for my child's safety, which is in part why I asked for the Golden Knight and King Ezran to remain here with their soldiers until the other elven rulers can join us."

"We are worried as well for Azymondias' safety, we would have asked for your Grace’s permission to remain until things settled in any case." Rayla stated, placing her free hand on her heart.

Zubeia let out a gentle guttural chuckle. "As I expected,” she smiled, “which is why I wanted to discuss something with you. Given the current state of things and your deeds, I would like to formally ask you to aid me in reforming the Dragonguard, as well as becoming part of it.”

Rayla stopped breathing again, drowning in the flood of thoughts that the Queen’s words had unleashed.

She had never expected to receive such a request from Zubeia herself. Sure, Janai had given her the title of Dragonguard two days prior, but everyone was aware that it was more of a situational formality than the real deal, than what her parents had been for most of her life.

As a kid, Rayla had often fantasized about joining her parents up on the faraway Storm Spire one equally faraway day when she was older, but it all had been childish delusions given the nature and skills required of their role. Hence why she had never even spoke about it with anyone, not even Runaan or Ethari, yet it was always in the back of her mind during the long training sessions, motivating her to prove to the world she could reach and even surpass their abilities, no matter her age.

However, more than that, those fantasies had given her strength when she missed her parents growing up, even when she reached a point where she rationalized them all as simple wishful thinking. No matter how much she was proud of her parents, she still wished she could have had them in her life, but even if becoming a Dragonguard was a sure way to do that, she had never been sure that was what she wanted for herself in her life, nor if she wanted to leave everything behind like they had done, like they had left _her_ behind.

Had the Queen asked her to be a Dragonguard before the day of Viren’s crimes at the Spire, she would have probably refused, likely out of hurt pride and retaliation against the parents she still loved.

And yet everything was different in that moment. She truly wanted to say yes.

Even if the Queen had apologized for believing her parents had deserted like the rest of the previous Dragonguard, even if she had managed to bring Zym home and possibly prevent an all-out war, nothing could ensure she was ever going to be welcomed back into the Silvergrove. Right then, she had nowhere to go back to in Xadia, so the offer to remain at the Spire and to have a new purpose in her life was something anyone would have been stupid not to accept without hesitation.

Not to mention how she cared for the little Dragon Prince a lot more than what she had initially expected, to the point that the simple thought of leaving him behind, possibly forever, was more painful than what she thought possible. She had never really thought about that moment before, it had always felt like a far away thing she didn’t need to worry about yet in the rush of events of the past month, but she knew she’d miss him for all her life. That if she left she’d be like her parents, in a way.

Zym would probably be hurt by her absence as well, just like he did when Ezran left, if not more since he would remain without any member of the makeshift family that took care of him in his first weeks of life. Would he grow feeling like how she had felt for all those years, resentment quietly taking a hold of his heart and isolating him from others? She didn’t even want to consider that possibility.

But... she couldn’t say yes either. Not yet, at least.

She had never even considered what would happen to her and Callum after their mission was over. Initially, she had responsibly chosen to hide her feelings for the whole time and then go on their separate ways, whenever that was to happen, as nothing more than allies and friends. Then, even after her feelings were reciprocated, whenever she had thought about a vague future for their fledgling relationship, she had only preoccupied with how things could turn out for the worst. What they would do and where they would go after their adventure reached its inevitable end had never come up in conversations since then, so she truly didn’t know how he’d feel about it.

Unlike her, he still had a family who would stand by him no matter what, a family who had to go back to their home, to Katolis. She could never be so selfish to ask him to leave them behind, to separate him from Ezran, and she was ready to follow him out of Xadia, if he wanted her to come with him.

If she blindly accepted right then and there, maybe he would remain in Xadia to learn from Ibis for a while and it would have made sense for him to remain at the Spire since it was the Sky Nexus, but after that time was over… would they be over too?

Her mind was stuck running in circles as she blindly stared at the grass patch in front of her, panic slowly rising as she picked herself apart like she was the petals of the flowers met by her gaze.

At that point she wasn’t even sure she could refuse a direct request -or order?- from the Queen. Would that anger her? Would she put everyone in danger if she said no? Where would she go? What would happen to-

Zubeia imperceptibly shifted her claws, but the sudden movement was enough to snap Rayla out of her silence.

“I…” Rayla tried to say, hoping that the right answer would come out of her mouth on its own.

Callum gently squeezed her hand. She almost wanted to turn to him and ask what he thought of it, but under the pressure she remained still, trying not to appear even more indecisive in front of the Queen. Too still, in fact.

“I apologize for how sudden this is.” Zubeia broke the silence, her tone motherly and patient instead of angry and frustrated like Rayla had expected. “I had taken for granted that you would have wanted this, given how, so far, you have protected my baby far beyond what was expected of you.”

Rayla felt the weight of her stare and words, but she couldn’t look at her directly nor turn to Callum, who whispered her name.

“If what you need is time to think about it, I will gladly give it to you.” the Queen continued after a brief pause. “The Golden Knight of Lux Aurea has already accepted to aid me in case you refuse, so don’t fret if you don’t want this. I fully recognize it’s not an easy task and you’re still young, I just want you both to be sure that it is what you want.” she finished, the motherly warmth and kindness in her last words almost overwhelming Rayla’s battered nerves.

“Wha-, BOTH?!” Callum shouted before Rayla could process the words, turning to look up towards the Queen so fast he tugged the her’s hand unintentionally, startling her and surprising the Queen.

“I- I’m sorry… do you really mean _both_ of us?!” he added apologetically, pointing his finger back and forth between him and the equally relieved and shocked Rayla.

All the thoughts that were plaguing Rayla’s mind had imploded on themselves in that moment, so she moved her astonished stare first on his incredulous face and then on Zubeia’s surprised expression.

“Why, wasn’t that clear?” she smiled again. “You both brought Azymondias back to me safe and sound, so you’re equally worthy of the role.” she confirmed.

The two exchanged an amazed look and the dragoness smirked at their reaction. “In truth, I would have asked your brother as well, but he is already a King. And in that regard, I would understand if you preferred to remain at his side, however, which is why I asked.”

Callum’s excitement quickly vanished and Rayla could easily read the thoughts that went through his mind.

She squeezed his hand. “You can talk with him later. We have time.” she whispered to him with a hesitant smile.

He did his best to smile back, despite the clear worry that made his brow hang low, then turned to face the dragoness. “Queen Zubeia, we are honored, but may we give you our answer after we have discussed this with our family?” he said with more confidence than Rayla expected.

Suddenly her cheeks started burning bright when her mind did a double take on his words. He had said ‘our family’. He had just seriously included her in his family in front of the freaking Queen of Dragons. As she tried her best to keep a straight face despite how red she knew she had become, she could have sworn her heart was going to beat its way out of her chest just to punch him.

“Of course.” Zubeia replied with an even bigger smile and an amused note in her voice that made Rayla even more flustered. She then moved her head closer again. “Callum, I acknowledge that you are still a fledgling albeit talented mage, but know that Ibis has already confirmed that he’d be happy to take you officially as his apprentice, regardless of your decision.”

Glad for the change in topic, Rayla pleasantly observed as Callum’s chest filled with pride and his eyes sparked with excitement.

“As for you, Rayla,” the Queen lowered her voice with discretion, “I don’t know if you have heard of it, in which case I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but word has reached me of what I presume was your Ghosting from your home village.”

Rayla felt herself sink into the ground, but she managed to keep herself steady. “I am aware of it. We passed by the Silvergrove during our journey.” her voice quivered dryly.

Zubeia looked at her with a pained expression. “Sadly there’s nothing I can do to undo it directly, but I will try to make your people reconsider their decision. I will also tell them the truth about Tiadrin and Lain, in their honor.”

“Thank you, my Queen.” Rayla replied, bowing her head as gratitude brought her to the brink of tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so, remember how I said this fic was going to be 9 chapters long?  
> Well, now make it 10 because I can't seem to keep scenes within their intended lenght and I somehow keep finding extra stuff to add! Seriously, the last chapter was already too big even if I was barely past the midpoint :'D
> 
> This chapter took so long because I was never satisfied with how I wrote a few points of this and the now-next chapter, plus IRL stuff kept me from being able to write as much as I'd liked, sorry ;;  
> Since I divided this chapter into two, the last one is already started. I can try to focus on finishing it soon, but I'm not gonna say it too loudly :')
> 
> So yeah, 10 should really be the conclusive chapter of this particular fic, but then I still got plans for the Janaya one and possibly a sequel to this one.


	10. Chapter 10

Rayla had been sitting on the decorated pavement outside the hall for a while, waiting for her hair to fully dry in the still illuminated yet windless spot she had found.

A fast-approaching storm chased the setting sun on the horizon and threatened to engulf it, turning the ocean of clouds into an intense painting of orange and purple shades. Chilly winds preceded the thunderous mass, carrying the scents of rain and of far away lands with them.

Pyrrah and the other Sun dragons brought back most of the still unsuccessful search party, then went to settle in the caves around the peaks to wait out the coming storm.

The pair of Twin-Tailed Inferno-Tooth Tigers nervously roared in the hall and Rayla hoped Ethari’s Shadowpaw was safe as well at the base of the Spire. Ezran had tried to get the beast to go back home after she had come back after the battle, but she had decided to remain and help the search team.

The moon peeked from behind the drifting clouds, its luminosity already beginning to disappear in its shadow. Rayla leaned on the stone behind her and sighed, frowning a little. Not only she had missed it, but she also didn’t even realize it until that moment that there was a full moon on the night of the battle. All of the emotions and tiredness accumulated during that day mixed with the flurry of events that followed their victory had somehow clouded her connection to it enough for her not to notice, which she didn’t even know to be possible. Although, in retrospect, the full moon was probably what kept her together during that long night.

An amused smile tugged at her lips, breaking her frown. She had planned on showing Callum her Moonshadow powers as a surprise, she knew he’d love them and would ask dozens of his silly questions, but since she missed that occasion she might have to organize something better for the next full moon, wherever they were going to be.

Rumblings began to come from the Queen’s chamber, sign that the archdragon was preparing for her flight. She was still weak, but the storm would do her good, maybe even bring her back to her full strength if powerful enough.

A loud wail of protest ringed on top of the noise. Zym wanted to follow his mother, but he was still too young to fly through the strong currents of the storm, so Ibis was put in charge as his caretaker until the Queen’s return.

Given the mage’s moderate raise in tone and vaguely desperate pleas that could be heard echoing through the hall, Rayla guessed his attempts at getting the Prince to come down from a ledge on the wall of the chamber were unsuccessful.

Rayla almost got up to go help -she had learned a trick or two to convince the little rascal to do as she said-, but given the low guttural laughters that sometimes accompanied the desperation of the Skywing mage, she decided to wait a bit more so that Zubeia could enjoy the happy moment a bit longer.

A far-off thunder followed a barely noticeable flash of light. Sighing, she wondered what was taking Callum so long.

Right out of the Queen’s chamber, they had almost immediately agreed that becoming Dragonguards would be the best turn of events for both of them, but there was still the pressing matter of telling that to his family, as well as formally getting Ezran’s permission, since Callum was still a Prince and that came with political baggage neither of them wanted to casually mess with, especially now that things were timidly getting better.

As much as she had appreciated her direct inclusion in his family, Rayla had insisted on making him talk alone with Ezran and Amaya, since her presence might have swayed the already difficult conversation, and she would have really been fine with either outcome. He had begrudgingly agreed and left right away to go find them, momentarily stopping and coming back just to give her a quick peck on the lips.

Even if it wasn’t ideal, the space between the bridge and the hall was the only place where there could be privacy for them to talk. With the storm coming, everyone else was buzzing around in the Dragonguard quarters, so they had agreed to meet out there once Callum had finished talking with his family.

Rayla shivered slightly. She usually didn’t mind the cold or even the snow, but admittedly, if they were going to live up there and deal with non-ideal weather, her regular assassin attire wouldn’t have been the most comfortable option for anything but clear skies. Judging by the almost-omnipresent slight goosebumps on Callum’s bare arms whenever the temperature dropped, he didn’t fare any better.

Rayla sighed again and stretched. Despite her worry, her thoughts were surprisingly optimistic for once, probably as a result of the overall relaxing time spent in the Dragonguard washroom while Callum was gone.

That room wasn't anything fancy by elven standards and was made to be as efficient as possible, but it had felt like a dream to finally be able to wash away a month of less-than ideal travel conditions from her body and her clothes. Much to her surprise, thanks to the multi-Primal enchantments that provided water and heat to the Dragonguard quarters, Rayla had managed to get herself and her clothes clean and dry extremely fast.

Once she had finished, she almost wanted to stop in the common room and listen to Kazi, who was busy exchanging random facts with a group of humans gathered around them, but Rayla had erroneously thought Callum was already waiting for her, so she had rushed away.

Not that it was a bad thing, since she wasn’t sure she could listen to one more of Soren’s stupid observations without punching him. If anything, the Crownguard seemed to be back to his old self, so she didn’t want to ruin that.

The sound of familiar steps caught Rayla’s attention and Callum appeared at the entrance, looking for her in the opposite direction.

“So… What did they say?” she inquired, jumping up on her feet in aching anticipation.

When he turned towards her, her heart sank a bit. She could easily tell from his puffy eyes that he had cried, a lot, but his overall expression was harder to decipher.

Callum stepped closer and swallowed as his eyes aimlessly wandered low in front of him, his arms crossed as his fingers nervously dug in his bare elbows. “They were... more than happy for me.” he exhaled, almost not believing his words.

Rayla began to breathe again. “That’s great!” she said, offering a smile, but he did not return. Whatever was said in the couple of hours he was gone surely couldn’t be fully described as ‘more than happy’, that was a given.

She closed the distance between them and placed a hand on his shoulder, but his eyes remained unfocused on the ground. He was trembling faintly, and she could only hope it was due the cold air.

“How are you feeling?” Rayla said softly, trying to catch his gaze.

He opened his mouth to reply, but no words came out. Instead, he waved his hands around, then dropped them with a soft frustrated groan. He hesitantly glanced at her, then his eyes crinkled as they fixated on a far away point on the ocean of clouds.

Rayla took a deep breath. “Listen, I know you said you’re okay with remaining here and the whole Dragonguard thing, but... Is it what you  _ want _ ?" she tentatively asked, vaguely afraid of his answer.

Callum’s eyes briefly met with hers again, before they moved away in shame.

“I... I think I want to. Yeah.” he said with a quivering voice, then covered his face with his hands as he breathed in deeply. “I mean, I really want to learn more magic, it really feels like what I was meant to do all along and here I can train with an actual mage! It really is more than what I could have ever asked for, and they both agree that it’d be a further pledge of goodwill between the Kingdoms and Xadia…” he stalled, dropping his hands and furrowing his brow with a pained look, “but I don't want to leave Ezran alone, even if he's almost more excited about me learning magic than I am.”

He raised hand to rub his eyes, sighing in the process. “He… He's still so young! I can’t even imagine what I’d do if I suddenly became King at my age, let alone when I was 10! I know he’s surrounded by good and trustworthy people, and he says he can do it on his own, but…” he paused when his voice broke, then sighed again, “but he’s still my little brother, you know? I'm the only family he has left that can remain at his side. Aunt Amaya is great, but she is a General and that means she'll have to be away most of the time even in peace times. And my step-father expected me to be his advisor, I owe it to him... and I... I just… I don't want him to feel alone.”

Rayla let him vent and let her hand slowly slide down his bare arm in a reassuring caress, her thumb moving slowly to accentuate it. Her body itched to hug him, be physically supportive like he did the day before for her, but she couldn’t bring herself to interrupt him.

She couldn’t argue with his words, as she would have thought the same if she were him. In fact, she cared for Ez almost like he was a brother to her and the sentiment seemed mutual, especially in the last few days. She didn’t like the idea of having to choose between Ezran and Zym, but they couldn’t escape that choice forever either.

“But I don't want to leave you either.” he added, grabbing her hand with both of his and looking her in the eyes with all the certainty he lacked before. For a moment, the intensity of his stare was almost too much for her. In his eyes there was nothing but love, sadness and fear of losing her.

She looked away to place her free hand on his, then looked back. "I told you, I can come back to Katolis with you. I don't have to remain here and neither do you," she firmly stated with the hint of a smile on her lips, “Zym will be fine, even without us.” she added, fighting not to show her sadness over it.

Callum hesitated and his stare wandered towards their joined hands, settling there for what seemed forever. His thoughts were almost loud enough to hear.

He sighed. “Let’s be real, it’ll be too dangerous for you.” he muttered, defeated. “Even if we do all we can and peace comes right away, it’ll take time for things to settle and for people to accept the changes. Until then, I’d feel responsible if you had to deal with it in Katolis.” he continued, staring at the clouds again.

She snorted, slightly vexed by his underestimation of her thick skin, but unwilling to argue about that at the moment.

“And so it is for you in Xadia.” she calmly rebutted with a bitter smile. “Sure, up here things might be different, but time will be needed for the rest of Xadia as well, maybe even more than for the Human Kingdoms.”

“Then… Maybe we should really stay up here?” he asked, equally hopeful and fearful to do so.

“Only if you really want to.” she whispered, touching foreheads with him.

“Ok, then… I want to.” he confirmed, giving the best smile he could muster while his cheeks reddened slightly. “But… Are you sure you want to as well? After all, your parents and what happened the oth-...”

She withdrew slightly, interrupting him. "Yea, I want to as well.” she said, smiling despite the memories hammering their way into her mind. “They were the ones who saved Zym, the reason why we ended up here together. Maybe I can continue what they started."

“I’m sure you'll do great.” Callum whispered, before giving her a soft kiss on her lips.

“Hey, are you bailing on me?!” she exclaimed, pulling away before she could get lost in him. Not that she didn’t want to, but her self-control reminded her that the wind was picking up its pace and that they wouldn’t want to be out there when the storm arrived.

“Wha-, n-no!" Callum stammered. “ _ We _ will do great. There, better?” he whispered apologetically with a sheepish smile.

Rayla chuckled. "Yes,” she said, placing a quick kiss on his cheek, “but now don't bail on your turn at the washroom. You still stink!" she sneered, pushing him towards the entrance.

“Fine!” Callum groaned through the dumb smile on his face. “I’m sorry you can’t stand the smell of a real man.” he joked, imitating Soren’s mannerism.

“I think you misspelled ‘rat’!“ she smirked, softly slapping him on the arm as he headed downstairs.

\---

After aiding Ibis in catching Zym and making the dragonling calm down once Zubeia had already climbed out of the chamber, Rayla went back to the common room. Callum and Ezran were not there, so she assumed they were already in the washroom.

Despite the relative safety of the peak from the storm and the fact that they were above the rainclouds, Ibis had advised them all to remain inside the quarters in order to avoid rogue lightnings and strong winds, so everyone was either there or already sleeping in the bedrooms.

Some people had started preparing dinner, but almost everyone was simply relaxing. Once again, elves and humans seemed not to care about their differences, chatting amicably with each other and sharing yet another unfamiliar moment of peace.

While Rayla looked for a place to sit down, her eyes met with Amaya’s and she gestured to come sit next to her. Rayla instinctively hesitated for a moment, but the warmth in the General’s face confirmed she had nothing to fear from her.

Despite that assurance, Rayla still walked discreetly towards her. The woman’s hair was still wet and she was wearing one of the old training tunics recovered from a stash in the back of the armory, which worked fine as temporary change of clothing. She shuffled a bit to the side and moved a piece of her armor from the seat to the floor. Armor that, by the looks of it, had been through more than enough, burnt bruises still showing no matter how hard she had been cleaning them up.

“Thank you.” Rayla mouthed with a smile, awkwardly taking her seat between the General and Corvus, who was busy chatting with a human soldier and two Sunfire elves she did not know.

Amaya smiled to welcome her, then went back to vigorously scrubbing one of her bracers, but after a few seconds her brow slightly furrowed and she stopped.

An irrational sense of guilt quickly crept up on Rayla, but Amaya turned towards her with another smile, this time melancholic and… proud?

Before Rayla could do or say anything, the General firmly yet gently hit the back of her hand on the elf’s shoulder, leaving her dumbfounded as yet another big smile overtook the woman’s face. Then Amaya went back to her armor, but not before Rayla managed to return a timid smile.

After that interaction, Rayla decided to ask Callum if he could teach her some basis of sign language, so that the next time she’d meet Amaya they would be able to properly communicate both ways on their own.

Rayla stared at her foggy reflection in the greave on the ground, lost in her thoughts, until Corvus called her name and dragged her into the conversation.

The growl of frequent thunders finally arrived and the Queen’s take off made the Dragonguard quarters shake hard, albeit harmlessly.

Some people, elf and human alike, felt uneasy at each and every roar of the storm, with a few even shrieking quietly, but Ibis had assured they’d be safe there and Rayla trusted him.

Plus, remembering what her parents had told her in their early letters, it seemed like they had been extremely lucky to catch so many days in a row without storms around the Storm Spire -it was in the name, after all-, so she knew she’d better get used to it.

Luckily food was ready soon after, so everyone’s mood quickly improved. Rayla got up to go get a portion for herself, following Amaya’s lead.

“Are you sure, Sabah?” a man whispered behind her.

“Come on, I’m sure she won’t bite your head off.” a female voice replied.

Rayla turned around and saw a Sunfire elf glance in her direction with a smirk and unceremoniously push the human soldier next to her forward. She recognized them as the pair who sat down a few feet from her the night before, so that the man could recover from a sudden pain flare of the wounds he had received during the battle. She was sure he looked familiar, but she had no idea of what he wanted.

He stumbled in her direction and passed his hand through his hair, visibly uncomfortable. “Hey, hi, I’m Marcos and, um…” he gulped, then fell silent.

“Um, hi, Marcos.” Rayla parrotted, raising her eyebrows and staring at the tall soldier in uncomfortable and visible confusion.

“Sorry, I know you probably don’t remember me, but I think I have to, well, thank you.” he continued with an embarrassed smile, looking at his feet.

“... For…?” she prompted after a moment too many of silence, hoping he’d clarify.

“In the woods. You, um, didn’t kill me.” he muttered, lowering his voice even further. “It was you, right?” he added, looking directly at her for the first time, furrowing his brow sheepishly in fear of having mistaken her for someone else.

In that moment, Rayla connected the dots and recognized his brown eyes. The same brown eyes that had begged her not to kill him the night she and the other Moonshadow elves had arrived in Katolis.

“Oh.” she uttered, taking a small step back. That was awkward. Painfully awkward.

“I don’t know why you let me go, but… yea, thank you for not… you know.” he babbled, equally awkward.

“Um, yeah, you’re welcome. No problem. At all.” Rayla said, trying her best to smile in the least awkward way possible. And failing, as no one had ever taught her how to behave with a person who had been one slash away from dying at her hand and then caused a chain of events that had turned her life upside down. And Callum didn’t count, as he had been an extremely specific and overall bad example of how to handle all that.

“So, um, see ya around!” he said, waving his hand lightly as he stepped away, while Sabah shot her an apologetic look and patted Marcos’ back amicably.

Rayla cringed internally as she raised her hand in a wave-like motion. Then she turned around, only to find Soren, still-dripping hair and all, standing there.

“Wait, so  _ that _ assassin was...  _ you _ ?!” he exclaimed loudly, leaving his mouth hanging open in shock. Most of the room turned towards them.

Rayla let out a long suffering groan, covering her face with both her hands.

\---

The storm kept going through the evening, but people seemed to forget about it through laughter and noise, at times loud enough to almost cover the thunders.

At one point someone started arm wrestling. Soon the thing evolved into a tournament in which Amaya and Janai stole the show completely, neither of them being able to gain enough margin to be considered the real winner. Each win was loud like the thunders outside, which inflamed both supporting sides.

Rayla had decided to remain out of it completely, still vaguely sore and not too interested in being the center of attention yet again. However, after seeing Ezran’s many attempts at teaching Bait how to play, she gave him the satisfaction of playing with her on their own, letting him win almost every time.

Callum had been sitting next to her almost the whole time, filling a few pages of his sketchbook with the places he had seen in the morning. He was still grumpy at his loss in his first and only match against Barius -the baker Rayla had finally learned the name of-, and kept mumbling to himself. 

“Callum, even if you had won against him, you’re in a room full of battle-hardened soldiers, what did you even expect?” Rayla teased with a grin, after Ez had run off to ask Barius for a snack while he was preparing dough for the next day.

“I don’t know! I hoped to win at least one!” he pouted under his breath, slamming his sketchbook shut and crossing his arms over it.

She noticed how his fingers retreated for a moment after touching the gashes in the thick cover left by the claws of the Sun-cursed Prince. Callum had mentioned how that was the only thing he had left from his step-father and, through the immense relief that he had avoided getting hit directly by those claws, she couldn’t avoid the bittersweet thought that the late King had somehow protected him through it.

“Well, maybe, if you asked nicely, you could play a friendly match with Kazi.” Rayla softly scoffed, nodding in the direction of the flimsy scholar, who was fearfully looking at the cheering crowd in front of them while conversing with Opeli. “Though, now that I think about it, Sunfire elves are naturally strong, so maybe...” she shrugged sardonically, partially regretting the suggestion in case she had assessed them wrong.

“So much for me becoming a Dragonguard.“ he frowned. “And why didn’t you play? Afraid of my aunt?” he smirked at her, narrowing his eyes judgmentally and slightly puffing up his chest.

“For starters, I already told you I can train you,  _ if _ you’re up for Moonshadow-style training, that is.” Rayla started listing, counting on her hand. “Secondly, I don’t wanna. And lastly, I’m pretty sure I could beat everyone in here, aside from her and Janai of course, which is why I’m not eager to test out my theory.”

Before Callum could say something stupid -given his sudden grin, she was almost certain of it-, yet another really loud bang on the wooden table startled him. Given the cheering human crowd, Amaya had won again.

He turned back towards her, slightly wide-eyed. “... Yeah, ok, that’s fair. You’ve already risked losing enough hands lately.” he smirked a bit apologetically, then shrugged. “But hey, maybe at this point I could actually take on your offer.”

“I’ll have you know that Moonshadow elves do life-binding oaths for that kind of stuff as well, so that’s included.” she whispered, nudging his side with her elbow.

“Is a good, patient teacher also included for its entire duration? If yes, maybe I can accept such terms.” he grinned, getting a bit too close for her not to want to kiss him, the hopeful note in his voice not lost on her.

“Mh, we’ll see about that.” she whispered softly, pushing him away as a chuckle escaped her.

\---

The unofficial tournament officially ended in a draw when the room shook again, this time due to Zubeia’s return.

While Amaya, Gren, Soren and Janai left to organize everyone’s sleeping arrangement, some people kept playing for a few more rounds, but soon pretty much everyone started yawning and quieting down.

Ibis entered the common room with a snoozing Zym in his arms. Both of them were ruffled up by the wind and the dragonling’s mane randomly gave static shocks from time to time, while the elf looked equally exasperated and exhausted.

As Ibis handed Zym to Callum, he very tiredly stated that the dragonling kept rushing outside and at one point got struck by lightning before he could catch him yet again. Not a big deal for a storm dragon, but apparently one was more than enough when so young, otherwise he’d risk something akin to an indigestion of Primal magic. Of course Zym didn’t know and kept trying to sneak outside even as he was getting sleepy, so even the Queen had to agree on letting him sleep in an enclosed space until the storm passed.

After exchanging a few words with Callum about their morning class and when they could go speak with Zubeia again, the Skywing mage bid everyone goodnight and trudged towards his room, almost bumping into Amaya on the stairs.

Shortly after that, Soren and Janai came back to the room carrying loads of mats from the armory, soon followed by Gren and then Amaya. People then started settling down for the night, a few moving to the bedrooms below.

Once he had given away his share of mats, Soren approached them and offered to carry Ezran to their room. The young King had fallen asleep leaning on Rayla’s shoulder, which she didn’t mind, so she helped him up in Soren’s arms after she moved Bait from his lap.

Ez mumbled in his sleep as he made himself comfortable on Soren’s shoulder, who in the meanwhile had picked up the grumpy toad as well.

Callum got up, adjusting Zym in his arms, so he could bring him to bed with Ez. The dragonling was trying his best to wake up and fight the drowsiness with purring growly complains, but his eyelids were heavy and each blink lasted longer than the previous one.

The two boys left, carrying the royal kids, and Rayla stood up, taking a moment to stretch her still-sore muscles.

As she did so and started moving towards Amaya, she noticed Janai waking up Kazi, who had dozed off against the wall in a corner, and leading the drowsy scholar out of the common room, catching them by the jacket when they tripped over nothing, narrowly avoiding a collision with the soldiers still in line for their mats.

Amaya caught sight of the scene as well and, unlike Rayla and everyone around the Golden Knight, she did not hold back a huge grin. Janai shot her equal an unamused glare as she moved past her, pushing the embarrassed Kazi forward.

Only after they had disappeared and Amaya turned towards the room with a smug smile, a series of quiet snorts broke out. Even Rayla couldn’t help a chuckle, which the General noticed. She then placed her last rolled up mat in her hands and gave Rayla a wink.

Rayla barely had the time to raise one eyebrow before the General patted her on the shoulder and gently pushed her out of the common room, walking behind her after quickly signing something to Gren, who then went back to checking Marcos’ wounds.

Not knowing how to ask even if they didn’t have the communication barrier, Rayla dismissed the woman’s wink as either something in sign language or as a nod to the fun moment.

As they reached the rooms, Amaya pointed at one with the door partially closed. They waved each other goodnight and the General entered into another room, leaving the door barely ajar.

Decided on not asking herself any more question until she had some quality sleep, Rayla stepped into the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for disappearing, I hope you're all doing relatively okay ;; Between the lockdown (I'm in Italy, so it's been even longer for me) and health issues I haven't exactly been in productive in pretty much anything.
> 
> The good news is that the final 3 chapters (yes, 3, because yet again more scenes got added to the "one final chapter" and I surrendered to separating them into more manageable chapters) have been mostly written for a couple of months now. It took me so long to post the first of them because I kept rewriting a bunch of scenes I wasn't happy with and then I couldn't bring myself to polish the whole thing.  
> Chapter 11 has been completed already and just needs proofreading so it might be posted in a few days, while 12 might still need some rewriting, but I am determined to finish this fic as soon as possible, so I can move onto the companion fic and sequel (I have some parts written already).


	11. Chapter 11

“Oh no.”

Rayla felt the daunting embrace of anxiety as her breath froze in her chest.

The room was bare aside from a bed, on the opposite side of the door and the small window, and a lit candle closer to the door. Whatever furniture used to be in it had likely been removed, just like in the other room she had been into, but in there the rock walls were covered in scratches and old dark stains. She shuddered, trying not to think of the man responsible for those marks nor of how he made them.

She didn’t dwell on those thoughts however, as it was clear that she wasn’t in Ezran’s room, which meant she was going to sleep either completely alone or with someone she didn’t know enough to feel safe around. In truth, considering the likelihood of getting nightmares again, she didn’t know which option scared her the most.

Maybe there was a mistake and Amaya had indicated the wrong room to her, although it wasn’t very likely since all the other doors were already closed.

Maybe she wanted to do her a favor and let her sleep on her own, which would have made sense since she likely didn’t know Rayla had been having nightmares and Callum was the only thing that made her calm down. Yeah, that was probably it, but in any case she had no idea what to tell her, nor  _ how _ .

Rayla sighed as she closed the door behind her, taking a deep breath as she leaned against it. Zym would likely notice if Callum was having nightmares, so hopefully he’d wake him up before his dreams got too real and he’d be fine. Amaya knew about them being ‘a thing’ and was fine with them, but, even if she knew little of human customs, directly asking her to let them share a room was surely pushing it too much, no matter the amount of other people in the room.

As for herself, she could manage one night alone. She could not cower in front of something as silly as nightmares, plus all that Big Feelings Time must have been good for something, right?

She slowly walked to the solitary bed, threw her mat next to it and sat on the edge, unable to calm herself enough to settle down and sleep. While deep in her thoughts, she stared at the dancing shadows casted by the enchanted candle on the walls, hoping they’d somehow soothe her anxiety. Voices from other rooms barely passed through the thick rock walls, resulting in a muffled hum that made her feel even more isolated.

As she let out a long sigh, she almost wished she had been given Soren and his annoying snoring as roommates. If anything, she wouldn’t risk falling asleep and having to deal with her nightmares.

After yet another thunder, the sounds of a couple of doors closing and the tapping of both resolute and hurried steps covered the barely audible hum of people talking in other rooms. Rayla barely paid attention to it, until the door moved. Without thinking, she jumped up on her feet, which maybe was not an appropriate reaction, but she was upset and tired enough that her body reacted fully by instinct.

Callum opened the room and winced when he saw her sudden movement, then his eyes widened in relief and confusion once he realized it was her. He quickly entered the room and closed the door, all while maintaining eye contact and a dumb polite smile with someone in the corridor.

He then turned towards her again and brought a hand to the side of his mouth. “What are you doing here?” he whispered, perplexed.

“I could ask the same to you!” Rayla replied with a smile, crossing her arms and raising one eyebrow. She was happy and relieved it was him of all people who entered the room, but she was just as confused as he was as to why.

Callum glanced at the door, his head ducking almost in terror. “Oh no, that’s why Janai was staring at me! This isn’t the room I was given, right?” he mumbled, slapping himself while placing his hand on his eyes.   
“I don’t know, you tell me!” Rayla responded with a smirk, ready to believe he could get lost in a straight corridor. “Besides, why aren’t we sleeping with Ez and Soren tonight?”

“Soren said aunt Amaya has rearranged the rooms, so we can all have more space. You know, since lots of people left.” Callum replied just before another thunder rumbled. “Which is a good thing, since Zym was already getting cranky and-” he smirked.

“Oh no.” Rayla mouthed, vaguely horrified. She felt her whole face burn, both in embarrassment and slight anger.

“Uh, are you okay?” Callum whispered worriedly as he got closer and placed a hand on her forehead. “What’s wrong?”

She lightly swatted his hand away and placed her hands on her definitely reddened face as she stepped away. “Your aunt!” she growled, trying her best to still whisper despite her agitation.

“Wait, why is my aunt wrong?” he mumbled, growing more confused by the second.

Rayla groaned in her hands. “Not-, not that. How many people know about-?!” she inquired, pointing at herself and him repeatedly, frowning at him.

“Uh… Ez, aunt Amaya and the Queen, I guess?” he innocently muttered after a moment.

Her frown deepened. “I doubt it’s just them, but let’s imply your aunt did not-”

“I-I’m sure she didn’t tell anyone, she-” he tried, not looking too convinced himself.

“Callum.” she cut him short, still flustered. “I’m pretty sure she already has. She seems anything but subtle about this kind of things, have you seen her with Ja-, her?!”

“Yeah, you’re right.” he conceded.

Rayla sighed. “As I was saying, what do you think that  _ this _ ” she gestured around the room, “will tell to those who don’t know?”

He opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again and bit his lower lip. After the apparent realization, his face passed a few shades of red as he looked down at the floor, hiding his raging blush in his scarf.

Rayla paced back and forth around the room, trying to somehow vent her frustration without making too much noise, even if the storm outside provided a good enough cover by any standard.

Having to sleep in a room alone with Callum wasn’t the problem, she would have appreciated it even if they weren’t in a relationship. They had slept in close quarters during all of their journey after all, although never really alone. During it, she had grown to feel safe sleeping around him and his brother surprisingly fast, especially considering she generally hated not having her own personal spaces.

Plus, the Storm Spire was going to be their home for several years at the very least, so them sharing a room -if not even a bed- was bound to happen sooner or later if their relationship lasted. Not to mention that, with the threat of nightmares looming over both of their heads, it would have also been easier for both of them to be within reach of each other instead of being alone or with other people. Earlier she had even admitted to herself that she was looking forward to having that bit of private intimacy once everyone had left, but with the implication that those steps would have been on their own accord and when they were away from potentially judgemental eyes.

Instead, what she did mind were the possible implications of his aunt setting them up to have a room only to themselves, while other people were at the Spire. She wasn’t exactly sure what Callum had said to her about them, but she surely must have misunderstood something along the way if she seemed to not care about the fact that others might guess that they -a human and an elf- were already in a relationship. Not that anyone would bring up their problems with it to the General’s face, but she still felt too potentially exposed for comfort. She had joked with Callum about their relationship remaining a secret to the Queen and the world, but at that point, with the future of Xadia and the Human Kingdoms at a tipping point over peace and war, it might be safer to keep it that way for a while.

Her mind bounced through every possible way of sneaking out unnoticed in the morning, so that no one could know they slept in the same room. She wasn’t exactly angry at Amaya because it was a nice gesture overall, but her embarrassment made her feel just as upset. At least she had been nice enough to give her a mat for herself.

Remembering the mat’s existence, Rayla furiously turned around, but Callum had anticipated her and had already picked the rolled up mat from the ground after placing his sketchbook down.

“You give that back.” she quietly snarled, startling him.

He swallowed the moment of fear and held onto the mat as she got closer intimidatingly fast. “Why? You can have the bed.” he whispered meekly, moving a step back.

“No, you have training in the morning, so you need it more.” she mumbled through her teeth, trying to grab the mat as he moved it away from her. She had noticed how, through the day, he had massaged his arms and shoulders from time to time, while she only lazed around and only had to deal with days-old soreness.

“I don’t care!” he insisted, hiding the item of dispute behind his back as he stepped around her. He had a playful grin on his face, but as endearing as he was, she wasn’t in the mood to play games at the moment.

“I do!” she annoyedly huffed to his face, trying to reach behind him.

Not wanting to hurt him even by accident, for a split-second she considered giving him a quick kiss as a distraction to steal the damn mat, but he seemed to catch on her intention since moved backwards with an even bigger grin.

“Rayla, please.” he chuckled as he bumped into the wall, cornered.

“Give me that damn mat or I’ll go sleep in the hall’s bare floor.” she threatened dryly, shooting him a glare a few inches from his face.

His stupid cheeky grin disappeared into a confused and saddened expression. “Why? Don’t you do want to sleep with me?”. One second later, he pursed his lips and raised his hands defensively, somehow sort of flimsily throwing the mat to the side. “Wait, no, I meant, in the same room, not... That came out wrong, sorry.” he grumbled in his own hand as it smacked his flustered face.

Taken off guard by what had just happened, she had looked away, staring at a suddenly interesting shadow on the wall, and moved her weight to rest on her heels, crossing her arms. That was really not what she needed to think about at the moment and she struggled to keep the thought out of her mind.

“... Very.” she managed to say through her teeth, after a moment of disconcerted embarrassment, not looking at him.

The awkward silence continued, both remaining still in their place. Another thunder’s roar echoed.

Callum sighed. “Listen, if this” he nodded at the room, “makes you uncomfortable, I can go talk to my aunt or I can go sleep with the others in the common room.” he said with a serious and concerned expression.

“It’s not that, I want you here, but I just...” she muttered, looking down. She huffed, still vaguely miffed about the whole situation, but at that point there wasn’t much else she could do.

“And, just to be completely clear, if you are… worried, about... that, um… Don’t be.” he managed to say through painful embarrassment, still not looking at her. “I’m... not that kind of guy.” he added, extremely serious.

Rayla blinked twice as what he had just said sank in, then a loud snort escaped her. “Oh no, no, I’m not worried. You’ve never given me a reason to believe that, not even half.” she sneered at him, waving her hand dismissively in his direction.

He cleared his throat, still very serious even while pressing his lips together as if not to laugh as well. “No, really, aunt Amaya was… very, extremely clear about me being... responsible.” he continued, his face being a mix of amusement, embarrassment and uneasiness as his mind was clearly going through the mortifying memories. That must have been quite the earful -handful? signful?-.

“I gotta say, I’m kinda starting to like your aunt’s style, although she’d better not do surprise stuff like this again.” Rayla chuckled, relaxing as she looked around to locate the mat.

“I’ll let her know you like her.” he whispered, grinning when he got the glare he expected from Rayla. “By the way, she was still worried about you today.” he continued, his voice softening. “She asked if you, um, if we had nightmares again.”

Rayla faltered as she stepped towards the mat, still not used to her vulnerabilities being exposed to others so carefreely. She was about to scold Callum again for it, when it clicked in her mind. “Well, guess we found out why she gave us a room all for ourselves.” she muttered, as she grabbed the mat.

“Oh, yeah, makes sense,” he sheepishly whispered, “but seriously, I can sleep in that.” he continued, pointing at the mat that was unfolding in her hands after she had removed the lacing that kept it rolled up.

With a sudden rough movement, she unrolled the mat on the ground. “Callum, I swear, I’ll-” she began, annoyed by the argument to the point that she was considering the use of actual threats.

“Or, you know...” he interrupted her, glancing at the bed shamefully, “we could both sleep on the bed.” he rushed to say before hiding his face behind his hand.

Rayla felt her face burn again, but she quickly assessed that, after such a long and emotional day, she was too mentally tired to really pay attention to it or to whatever acrobatics her heart was doing in her chest.

If that was what it took to get Callum to sleep on an actual bed without further discussions, then she’d put up with the embarrassment she felt surging through her. She just had to hope no one would burst into the room before she woke up, but she’d take the risk.

She exhaled. “Okay.” she said coolly, shrugging as she turned and moved towards the bed, faking bravado while her thoughts turned into incoherent screeching.

A delayed choked ‘what’ came from his lips, then she could feel his stare on her while she was removing her boots.

Ignoring the part of her mind that was increasingly freaking out, she folded back the blanket and sat on the mattress, shuffling on the other side to leave space for Callum. She was surprised to find out that the bed was wider than the one she had slept into the day before, not enough to properly accommodate two adults but enough for them to be comfortably close.

She reached for her blades and removed them from their clasps, then took off her hooded vest, placing them against the wall, within her reach. Sleeping without them right on her person felt almost wrong, but she convinced herself that she wouldn’t really need them in the Spire, filled with dragons and heavily armed allied soldiers.

“Callum, why aren’t you moving?” she groaned with a smirk upon looking at him again. He was where she had left him, staring at the mat on the ground, red in the face while his hands fidgeted in embarrassment.

“S-sorry.” he muttered, snapping out of his thoughts and circling around the mat, blowing on the enchanted candle as he passed by it. The magical flame flickered and started slowly dwindling, making him hurry.

As the light went down, the actual level of intimacy of the situation ahead of her slowly seeped into Rayla's mind, accelerating her heartbeat the more she realized and tried to ignore it. Potentially, no one could interrupt them, two hormonal teens who had gone through more things than anyone their age -regardless of race- should have gone through and who had recently experienced far too many occasions in which they could have lost each other.

And yet, she wasn’t worried. She blindly trusted from the beginning -she couldn’t pinpoint the beginning of what, exactly- that neither of them would recklessly overstep any boundaries, whichever they were, and it made her feel more comfortable with the situation than what she could ever expect.

At the same time, however, she knew for certain that they were taking a huge risk. If anyone were to find out that they had shared a room -or even worse, a bed-, the rest of the world was likely going to believe the most cynical version of whatever they would say, if not make up worse lies for the sake of it. It was not fair, it was an intrusion into what was their own personal journey and, to make matters worse, there was no doubt that things would be much easier if they were not so different, while in their case everything was uncharted territory in all senses.

As she tried to divert her mind from her increasing bitterness and he fumbled to remove his boots before the light would go out fully, another quiet thought made its way into her head. She realized that she had never shared a bed with anyone, at least not since the first year after her parents left her. Whenever she missed them or had a nightmare, she would crawl into Ethari’s and Runaan’s bed and they would hold her between them, maybe even tell her a story, until she finally fell asleep. Then, in the morning, Ethari would quietly get up early to bring her and Runaan breakfast in bed, often finding them cuddled together -which the assassin would deny being intentional in the years to come- when the smith returned with fresh moonberry surprises. It didn’t happen many times, but she had never realized how much treasured those moments.

Before she could feel the sting of sadness and guilt over the memory of her lost mentor, Callum finally sat on the edge of the bed, facing away from her and straightening his back.

She knew him well enough to realize he was panicking.

Rayla touched his arm and he winced. “Are you okay?” she whispered, her voice uncertain as she struggled not to snicker.

“Mh-mh!”

“I’d like to remind you that this was your idea.” she stated, trying to remain serious as she inched closer.

“I know.” he replied, the mix of whimper and whisper so quiet she almost didn’t hear him over the storm.

“So... are you gonna sit there all night?” she teased, knowing full well that she was not that far away from feeling like him. If anything, the fact she felt comfortable around him even in that situation made it all more embarrassing, in a way.

Silence, if not for the thunders outside. Rayla stared at his back for a bit, then she decided listen to her heart for just a moment and throw all discretion, embarrassment and whatever else to the wind. In that room, they were alone and she didn’t need to care.

She slipped her hands around his arms -she would have gone under them, but they were firmly stuck to his sides- and locked them around his waist, hugging him from behind. When he winced and whimpered in surprise, she tugged him closer to her and placed her chin on his shoulder, angling her head to keep her horns safely out of bumping-range.

“Hello?” she quietly sang, slightly pushing her cheek against his. In a way, she was shocked at how natural holding him like that felt.

Callum remained tense and she could see his eyes open wide, almost in shock. Very reminiscent of his face after their disaster of first kiss, actually.

“Too much?” she muttered worriedly, lifting her arms and chin enough not to make contact anymore. Was that too far?

“No no! It’s fine! I just…” he rushed, glancing at her, “it’s… weird. In a good way though!”

“ _ You _ are weird.” Rayla smirked. “Super weird.” she hugged him properly again. “In a good way, though.” she parrotted him with a soft smile, before kissing him on his particularly warm cheek.

That seemed to give him enough courage to turn his head and try to catch her lips before she moved away. Given their respective positions and his rush, he only ended up bumping his nose into hers.

“Sorr-” he tried to apologize, but she had already started giggling, hiding her face on his shoulder and almost bumping his head with her horn. It didn’t truly hurt, but their physical proximity definitely still needed practice.

“There he is again, my big dumb non-frozen human.” she beamed as she withdrew from the embrace, patting his back.

He turned towards her slightly, but replied only with a stupidly sweet smile and an equally soft loving stare.

Feeling her heart jitter as his lovestruck expression lingered a moment too long, Rayla coughed. “So, are we gonna sleep now or what? It’s getting kinda chilly and the candle is almost out.” she said as impassively as possible despite her smile, shyly moving back to her spot without looking at Callum as he crawled into the bed.

Before she could grab the blanket resting on her legs, she felt his arm reach around her waist and pull her closer. The instant she turned to face him, he kissed her with the same naturalness as when he did on the Ambler’s back. And, just like then, she couldn’t help but melt into his lips.

Another kiss followed before the first was truly over, then one other and again some more, neither of them wanting to part. Each movement was filled with eagerness and hesitation, slowly and shyly pushing boundaries as they relished in their first moment of real privacy since they got to the Storm Spire. By the time the light had gone out, her hand had found its way under his scarf and she had let her legs twist with his so she could press herself closer to him, while his other hand had joined the first in an intimate embrace.

All her worries and thoughts quietly evaporated in the warmth of each other’s company, leaving her raw and vulnerable, yet she had never felt so safe and... at home.

She was certain he could feel her heart pound in her chest as they drew each other even closer, but she didn’t care. In fact, she almost wanted him to know that, right there and then, it beat that loud exclusively for him.

“I love you.” she whispered through a breathless smile, before returning her lips to his.

He leaned into the kiss, then pulled away slightly when he couldn’t contain his dorkish smile anymore. “I love you, too.” he reciprocated, almost too loudly given the relative silence of the storm. He nuzzled her nose with his and they remained still in each other’s arms, 

blissfully basking in each other’s intimate presence as they caught their breath. Then, with a sharp breath, his lips were again on hers as he held her even close, needy of her just like she was of him.

The sound of a door being opened made them jolt out of their intimate moment, then the following second got them close to making enough chaos to possibly wake up half of the Spire.

Although taken by surprise by the sudden sound, with her usual fast reflexes and movements Rayla had removed her hand from his neck and herself from Callum’s immediate proximity, sitting back straight and staring wide-eyed in the direction of the door.

Just a fraction of a second to register that it wasn’t their door that had opened, and her hand went back to catch a gasping Callum by the scarf and tug him back into her arms just before he fell off the bed, after their mutual startled retreat made him lose balance over what little space he had on his side.

As she distanced herself from him and pushed her finger against his lips when he tried to say something, Rayla silently thanked the fact that Moonshadow elves could see even in moonless nights, as even in a dark room with a small window she had been able to make out the rough shape of him.

They remained alert -and partially terrorized- as boots clacked on the stone pavement and the unknown door closed. Then, after the steps quietly hurried up the stairs, they both slowly exhaled and relaxed. That scare had drained most of her energy and her heartbeat was still fast in her ears.

“Thanks.” he whispered, sounding as apologetic as ever, as if he knew she was shooting him a glare.

“Let’s just sleep before anything else happens. Goodnight.” she nervously sighed, grabbing the blanket and lying down on her side without a second thought. So much without a second thought that she somehow forgot completely he had to sleep in the same bed as her until he laid down as well.

Her heart started thumping in her chest again as he got comfortable next to her, careful not to touch her back as he laid on his side. She regretted the idea of sleeping right away and almost considered turning around, in spite of any potential issue in case anyone entered the room, but she kept hesitating.

Right when she decided to turn around, he exhaled and moved again. Her heart backflipped when his arm encircled her waist and his chest gently pressed on her back. His touch was light and soft, and the implicit request of permission in his hesitancy made Rayla’s heart swell and cheeks burn.

A fond smile took over Rayla’s lips and she pushed herself into his embrace, finding his hand to intertwine their fingers together.

“Goodnight.” he whispered in her hair, his breath tickling her ear slightly, enough to make it twitch reflexively. He then pressed a kiss on her hair and nestled in a comfortable position.

Even if she could still feel her heart drum in her chest, she focused on the movement of his chest against her back as he breathed, which slowly soothed her to sleep.

A door opened again and Rayla jolted awake, the abrupt movement making her horns hit Callum’s head with a low thud.

It wasn’t their door, again, but this time whoever had opened it didn’t bother to be quiet, close it nor walk up the stairs as lightly as the previous person had done.

As soon as the noise was far enough and it was safe to move, Rayla turned around under Callum’s arm, prodding herself up on her elbow. “Sorry, did I hurt you?” she fretted, tapping the top of his head and passing her fingers through his hair.

“I think I’m okay.” he whispered. “I... kinda forgot about those.” he shamefully admitted as he shifted a bit, removing his arm from her back to tap on his head as well.

She huffed, relieved and somewhat amused, and laid down again, this time facing him.

His hand lost no time to search for her face in the dark, his fingers gently caressing her cheek and moving a lock of hair behind her ear. Lying down that close to him still felt unreal to her, almost magical in the way it made her feel.

She still could vaguely see him and dove forward, kissing him softly. His hand combed her hair as he tenderly reciprocated, but then she felt his fingers gently run across her horn, exploring its texture from the base to almost the tip. The shivering sensation that ran down her spine made her recoil from the kiss, his touch and almost fall from the bed.

“Callum!” she whispered, scandalized, outrageously flustered and baffled at his sudden impudence.

“Wh-what?” he whimpered, confused by her reaction yet already apologetic as always.

Oh, right. A human wouldn’t know.

Rayla took a long, deep breath to calm herself. “Let’s just say you don’t touch someone’s horns just like that, nor like  _ that _ .” she groaned, still feeling the raging blush on her cheeks.

“Oh…” he gulped, “is it a taboo or is it like…?”

“Both. Sorta, it’s complicated.” she huffed. “You should have least  _ asked _ .”

“... I am so so so sorry.” he whispered with a choked voice.

She let out a sigh. “Now you know.” she muttered, feeling bad for having scolded him for something she probably should have remembered to mention. She made a mental note to properly explain it to him one day.

She laid down again, still flustered, but then a soft smile tugged the corners of her lips. “Turn around.”

“Why?” he inquired with a hint of fear.

“Just do it.” she replied, playfully pushing his shoulder.

As soon as he did, she settled down and hugged him, just like he had done before. “This way you’ll stay away from my horns, in all senses.” she whispered, as a reply to his ‘oh’.

She nestled her face in his scarf as a chuckle escaped them both. “G’night.” she cooed, pressing a kiss on the cloth.

His hand took hers and brought it to his lips, then to his chest. The cadence of his breathing gently slowed down, until he fell asleep just as the storm seemed to quiet down for a while.

As the rhythmical sounds of his heart and familiar quiet snoring lulled her to sleep, she admitted to herself that she could get used to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! Life got busy again pretty fast, but now I should be able to relax a bit and finish this fic! :')  
> \---  
> To clarify the horn thing: my headcanon is that elf horns are sturdy yet fairly sensitive, so elves react differently depending on how you touch them (just like how one's ears or neck react differently to different types of touch), so the meaning behind the act of touching someone’s horns is a bit of a deep cultural thing that varies between races.  
> All races tend to restrict who can touch their horns as it’s seen as a sign of deep mutual trust, Earthblood being the more open to it and Moonshadow elves being extremely strict.  
> Generally, family and partners are the only ones who get an universal pass for it, while friends may or may not get that pass, but it’s always up to the individual. Bumping horns together is something only partners and really close friends tend to do, if at all. And yes, I accept the canon-headcanon that horn cuffs and rings are for married couples.  
> Depending on the context, touching someone’s horns without consent is usually seen as inappropriate (like grabbing someone’s butt) or as an offence (in a fight is generally considered foul play, while breaking someone's horn intentionally will get you shunned). It’s not inherently lewd, but it can also assume that meaning.  
> Also, broken horns are seen as either a sign of shame or of pride, depending on the story behind them and the race, but many choose to get a prosthetics replacement for the broken part anyway (I headcanon that Ethari lost the tip of his right horn during a workshop accident when he was younger).  
> In short: Rayla would have let Callum touch her horns without problem if he ever asked (probably even at the Moon Nexus). She would have likely only blushed a bunch and felt tickled because he would be extra gentle, but in this occasion he didn't know better and she was taken by surprise by such an intimate touch in an intimate context.


	12. Chapter 12

Rayla had probably never slept so well.

Sure, the space on the bed wasn’t exactly enough to be fully comfortable and she had woken up with a partially tingling arm, but she felt positively radiant that morning.

Unsurprisingly, they both had nightmares again, probably also thanks to the storm which had ended up continuing through most of the night, yet sharing a bed with Callum did have the benefits she had expected.

She had woken up in the middle of the night when he had started stirring in his sleep under her arm, but a gentle touch on his face was all that was needed before his eyes fluttered half open. He then turned on his back, extended his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. He whispered her name once followed by what seemed a gasped ‘I got you’, then his breathing turned back to normal and he seemed to fall asleep again, with the shadow of satisfied smile on his face. Rayla was still too drowsy to dwell on what he could have been dreaming and, not at all unhappy with their new sleeping arrangement, she had quickly dozed off on his shoulder.

The next time she had woken up, she had found herself wrapped in his arms, her cheekbone resting on his bicep and her nose slightly itching from the contact with the fabric of his shirt. His chin barely brushed her forehead, as far from her horns as possible. He would tell her later, while lying in each other’s arms as the sun was barely rising, both still groggy and unwilling to get up just yet, that she had started whimpering in her sleep while clinging to him, but she couldn’t recall doing that nor what the nightmare was about.

Sleeping together surely seemed like the best option from then on.

Callum was supposed to meet Ibis at the pinnacle early in the morning, but given it was still dawn and the Spire was completely quiet, they had remained cuddling in bed for a bit more. Rayla was already fully awake, deep in her thoughts as she quietly observed Callum dozing off and gently stirring in her arms every few minutes, keeping her grounded.

As he nuzzled in the nook of her neck and his arm gently pulled her closer, she expected to feel the familiar burning sensation in her cheeks, but it never arrived. Instead, comforting warmth bloomed in her chest, making her feel more content and at peace than she’d ever been.

The novelty of the naturalness of the situation quietly stunned her. A soft smile tugged at her lips when she realized how fast they kept settling into new situations that brought them closer and closer with little to no effort, while all the countless small intimate gestures she had started to notice quickly became an innate routine for them.

She placed her lips on his hair and held him close. She was certain that, whenever the truth about them would eventually come out, she would fight with all of herself to protect their own little piece of peace, it was theirs alone and no one could take it from them.

When quiet voices and metallic noises started coming from the nearby rooms, Rayla reluctantly abandoned the warmth of the blankets and sat up, in spite of the half-asleep Callum clinging to her shoulder and begging for a few more minutes.

She had to hoist him up and remind him of his lessons before he could finally be defined as maybe-minus awake, before succeeding in the task by generously ruffling his glorious bedhead.

Smirking at the boy’s laments about the room and the world being 'oh so cold and unfair', Rayla pushed herself out of bed, not entirely enthusiastic about leaving their little nest of warmth and peace, yet quite glad she could stretch the soreness out of her body. For sure they would need to find a larger bed, if sharing it was actually going to be a recurring thing for them.

Callum let out a loud yawn as he sat on the side of the bed and reached for his boots on the floor.

A mischievous grin took over Rayla's lips as she stopped mid-stretch. She sneakily leaned on the bed and pinched his rear.

“Ouch! What was that for?!” he exclaimed, flustered as he massaged the offended spot.

“Revenge.” she grinned slyly, pointing at her horns with a theatrical gesture. She was blushing a bit as well, but she did not care as she was too busy trying not to laugh.

He stalled for a moment, then looked away and hid his very red face in his hands. “Okay, that’s fair.” he conceded, before they both started snickering.

“I’m sorry.” she said quietly, sitting down next to him and leaning on his shoulder.

“You’re not.” he smirked, still a bit flushed, and she shrugged innocently.

He took her hand and intertwined their fingers, suddenly quiet and pensive.

“What’s wrong?” Rayla asked, squeezing his hand lightly.

“Is it... would it really be a big deal if people knew about us?” Callum asked timidly, looking at the pavement. “I don’t like acting so distant from you.” he muttered, almost just to himself.

She frowned and let out a long sigh, staring ahead. “I really don’t know… I fear something like us could easily upset the wrong people, at least for the time being.”

“But shouldn’t we be proof that peace can work?” he insisted, scowling.

The corners of her lips rose imperceptibly and she glanced at him. “As much as it’d be fun to play that part in peace talks, I’d kinda prefer not taking chances in whatever political dance we're going to deal with in a few days.”

“Mm, maybe you’re right.” he grimaced, before grinning a bit sadly while tapping his feet on the floor. “As you might have noticed, I’m not the best at dancing.”

A chuckle escaped Rayla. “There's always room for improvement.” she smirked, then looked him in the eyes. “When the time is right, we won’t hide anymore, I promise.” she whispered, sealing the vow with a kiss on his cheek.

He quietly smiled, blushing as he looked at their still joined hands and then at her so earnestly she feared her heart couldn’t bear it.

“So, are we gonna tell Zubeia we’re accepting her offer as soon as she wakes up?” she casually asked, catching herself and trying to change the topic before she’d surely make him late for his lessons.

“Or as soon as I’m back.” he confirmed, nodding. “But wait for me, okay?” he added, playfully bumping her shoulder with his.

“I _always_ have to wait for you.” she huffed with a sneer and he pretended to be offended, before his expression became unexpectedly serious.

“Hopefully it’ll go smoothly this time.” he sighed, bowing his head. “I gotta say, for a moment yesterday I was afraid I had truly messed everything up.”

“Just ‘afraid’?” she scoffed, placing her arm around his shoulders. “You were so pale you were almost glowing like a glow toad!” she grinned, squeezing him gently.

A hint of a smile appeared on his face as he sighed. “I forgot to tell you, but thank you for defending me. Again.” he muttered, still smiling a bit despite his frown.

“You would have done the same for me.” she said, trying to catch his eyes. “I have your back and you have mine, right?” she smiled when he finally looked at her, tilting her head slightly.

Callum’s face lit up again and, with the biggest smile, they both leaned into a soft, unhurried kiss.

Admittedly, Rayla still despised the idea of him getting in harm’s way to protect her, but if they were going to be part of the Dragonguard _together_ , she knew she had to accept it sooner or later. And, in a way, she already had.

Callum was no warrior and, even as a mage, he still had lots to learn and practice before he could be considered a real threat by anyone, let alone outmatch a trained assassin or soldier, but when it mattered he had proven to be stronger than she could ever be.

She had been wrong to think she was the only one who could protect them both, when, in fact, he had been on the front line to protect her whenever physical strength and blades weren’t needed, whenever she had been vulnerable and wounded, whenever her tenacity had faltered… and when she had already sacrificed herself.

And he had been doing so much more than simply protecting her, he had been helping her get through the all the emotional turmoil that she had no defense against. In spite of everything, he had been doing that since the day they met, he had challenged her badly scarred convictions since the very moment she had pointed her blade at his throat. And he had never given up on her, even when she had lied to him, hid the truth from him, pushed him away or rejected his help.

She could no longer ignore the bitter truth. She had only been able to deal with physical pain -and not even that well- and she had almost broken down multiple times -until she actually did-, while he was the one who for years had been enduring old and new hurt, betrayals and pain on his own and still managed to smile for his brother at the end of the day. Smile for her, to make her feel better, even when he was hurting just like her, if not worse.

He had lost most of his family, but he had been able to deal with his rightful anger and hate on his own and still find it in his heart to feel sorry for those who had caused it, even forgive them at times. Feel sorry and forgive her, who had tried to kill Ezran, their father and him. Love her, even.

And, despite having built walls around herself for her whole life, she had let him in with surprising ease, each time putting up less and less resistance, deep down welcoming every kind word or gesture from him, learning to appreciate the fact that he, somehow, _cared_ for her. That he, somehow, had ended up _loving_ her, just like she loved him.

He might not be a warrior, but his heart wasn’t weak. He might not be physically strong, but even as someone who had no faith in himself, he would never step down when he could do something: not in front of her blade to protect his brother, not in front of a dangerous journey to give peace a chance, not in front of the injustice of her Ghosting, not in front of the cliff to save her.

Whether she’d ever admit it to him or not, she couldn’t ignore that he was _her_ hero.

Laughs came from the rest of the quarters, as people started to come out of their rooms and get ready for the day. Rayla withdrew with a shy smile, clearing her throat, but Callum stole another quick kiss and then pressed his lips on her cheekbone, clinging to her waist not to let her escape. As much as she wished to indulge him in his adorably affectionate endeavors, he had places to be and she didn't want to share the guilt for his lateness.

“Ok, now you go to your lesson, you dorky mage.” she grinned, easily freeing herself and pushing him on his feet in spite of his whimpers of protest and pursed lips that threatened more kisses.

“You’re no fun!” he pouted, pulling the saddest look he could manage while grinning like an idiot.

“Nope, I’m the most serious elf in this place.” she solemnly stated as she passed him his sketchbook, struggling to keep a straight face.

“I’ll have my own revenge later.” he chuckled as he walked to the door, shot a beaming yet sweet smile at her and exited the door, closing it behind him.

Rayla let herself fall back on the bed and breathed in deeply. She would need a while for the big smile on her face to pass on its own.

\---

When she went to the common room, she found almost everyone up there already, probably attracted by the fragrant scent of baked goodness Barius and a Sunfire elf had taken out of the oven.

Unsurprisingly, Ezran arrived shortly after her, followed by Soren and the still-sleeping Zym in his arms, while an extremely-grumpy Bait rested on top of his shoulder. By the tired unfocused stare of the Crownguard and the continuous yawns of both Ezran and Bait, she had no doubt that Zym had barely let them sleep during the night.

Amaya and Janai looked kinda beat as well, the first with slightly visible dark circles under their eyes and the second with vaguely puffy eyes, but somehow they both seemed cheerier than the day before, as well as less hesitant to be seen close. The moment the General looked her way, Rayla smiled without even thinking about it and the woman replied with a big grin and a wink.

Much to Rayla’s relief, no one seemed to notice what her bedroom arrangement had been, nor seemed to care.

Rayla walked out of the hall, blinking at the strength of the sunlight. The air was crisp and thick pearly clouds surrounded the summit, not a single stormy cloud in sight.

Pyrrah was resting there, likely waiting for the search team, and nodded with a clicking hiss in acknowledgement at her greeting.

Rayla sat down in her usual spot, stretching her legs and sinking her teeth in the round loaf of sweet bread she had picked as her breakfast.

As she munched on it, she observed the search team get ready and, ignoring the awkwardness of the previous evening, waved at Sabah when she was noticed by her.

Once Pyrrah dove after a powerful flap of her wings, Rayla leaned against the cold rock and closed her eyes. Zubeia’s slow and deep breaths and the occasional laughters that came from the common room were the only sounds that accompanied the low howls of the light breeze.

She was pretty sure that the two mages had flown away already, probably even before she had come outside. Callum had excitedly mentioned that Ibis wanted him to focus on flight practice for a while, since he seemed talented with it and it was going to come in handy once Zym was old enough to fly properly. She grinned at the idea of Callum chasing Zym through the clouds, trying to get him to behave like when she had to follow him through branches and foliage a few times during their journey.

Almost on cue, a series of chirps and growls echoed in the hall, followed by the laughters and calls of Ezran. Rayla put the last piece of bread on a nearby rock and stretched her legs forward, readying herself for a very possible dragonling assault.

“Hey Zym!” she called as soon as the dragonling walked out of the entrance.

He excitedly turned his fluffy head with a chirp and joyfully scampered towards her, jumping on her lap to give her a good morning dose of zappy kiss, which she avoided by picking him up at the last second.

Ezran followed shortly after, slightly out of breath. “Ok, now I get why they said he shouldn’t overdo the lightning-thing.” he panted, raising his hands in defeat as he walked closer.

“Too much energy?” she guessed, holding Zym far from her face as he flapped his wings vigorously and wiggled his legs.

“Yup! And lack of sleep.” Ez grinned. “He’s even worse than me when I eat too many jelly tarts before bed!” he mumbled, sitting next to Rayla and slumping against the cold rock to catch his breath. She set Zym down on her legs, but kept her hands around him to scratch his back, hoping to calm him down.

Bait calmly caught up to them and climbed on Ezran’s lap, worriedly eyeing Zym when he tried to throw himself on him despite the fact he was still restrained by a pair of strong elven hands. Then, with a grumble, he snatched the piece of sweet bread from the rock next to Rayla with his tongue.

“Bait!” Ezran reprimanded the glow toad, who simply looked up at him and swallowed the bread.

“It’s fine, he deserves all the snacks he wants.” Rayla shrugged, remembering her promise to give him as many treats as possible. Bait replied only with a satisfied burp as he settled on Ezran’s lap for a nap.

The scratches worked so well that Zym flopped on his back on both Rayla’s and Ezran’s laps, completely relaxed. Bait, quietly grumbled, offended by the invasion of his personal space, but refused to move even when Zym turned his head to give him a lick.

“I’m happy you and Callum will remain here with him. At least I know you’ll protect each other.” he somberly muttered all of a sudden, after being quiet for a while. “Right, Zym?” he chimed, changing tone completely.

Zym lifted his head and chirped twice, smiling.

Rayla circled the young King’s shoulders with her arm. “Well, I hope Soren will do a good job protecting you, otherwise he’ll have to deal with me!” she smirked, ignoring the sting in her eyes.

He leaned into the hug. “He’s good and you know it.” he smiled. “Besides, I have Bait!” he added, patting the glow toad’s head.

“Oh yeah, he’s the best Dragonguard _and_ Crownguard there’ll ever be.” Rayla stated seriously, before laughing when Zym placed yet another zappy lick on Bait’s proud grumpy face.

“You know, he likes you a lot, even if you often don’t want to play.” Ez said softly, petting Zym’s snout and receiving a surprise zappy lick on his palm. “And even Zubeia likes Callum and you!” he beamed, turning towards Rayla.

“I’m glad, at this point I’d be worried if she didn’t want us around!” she laughed, despite the very real fear from the day before.

Ez chuckled. “Nah! Callum said he was super scared his use dark magic could have influenced Zubeia's judgement and make her throw us all out, but really, there was no risk! Not after Zym had told his mother he was good to him and to you!”

Zym chirped to confirm the statement and sat up on the ground between them, accidentally wagging his tail in Bait’s annoyed face repeatedly.

“Oh, so you said that, Zym? Thank you!” Rayla chimed, cupping the dragonling’s cheek with her hand and caressing it with her thumb.

“More or less.” Ez replied, smiling. “You would have known it wasn’t a big deal if you weren’t always away.” he grinned, then his expression changed. “But… are you okay?”

“I…” she paused, wincing slightly as it all came back to her for a moment. “I’m getting better.” she forced herself to smile to reassure Ez.

“That’s good.” he muttered with a trembling note in his voice, hugging her.

She wrapped her arms around the young King, holding him close as he sniffled and trying her best to keep herself together. Zym slipped himself into their hug, licking Ezran’s face until he calmed.

To cheer Ezran up, Rayla proposed they all played together for the rest of the morning, promising she might even teach him some secret elven tricks later. The young King's face had immediately lightened up, while Zym had started excitedly flying in loops.

It wasn’t even mid-morning when Zym stopped all of a sudden while running, almost causing Ezran to trip over him, and looked up the peak. Rayla, recognizing his expression from the previous day, rushed to catch him right as he tried to run up the stairs to the pinnacle.

“What was that for, Zym?” Ezran asked, both him and Rayla scanning the sky.

“He acted like this when Callum came back yesterday morning.” she said while holding the defeated dragonling, not hiding her smile at the idea of him being back at the Spire, but then a worrisome thought made its way into her mind. He had said he was supposed to train for endurance that day, so why had they come back so soon?

Before Rayla express her concerns, quick steps loudly hurried down the stone staircase and the three of them turned towards the source of the sound. Ibis was rushing down, carrying his travel bag and his staff.

“Oh, King Ezran, Prince Azymondias! I'm glad you're here.” he huffed as he reached the bottom of the stairs, trying to sound calm and formal despite the apparent urgency. “You should go to the Queen’s chamber, please check if she’s awake, I’ll be right there.” he blurted out, vaguely out of breath, as he kept sidestepping towards the entrance. “Um, do you know where the Golden Knight is right now?” he quickly asked, stopping in the entrance.

“Common ro-” Ezran started saying, but Ibis had rushed away already.

They stood in silence, looking at each other for a tense confused moment, interrupted only by a long interrogative whine from Zym. Ibis was always extremely calm and composed, so seeing him so breathless and agitated didn’t exactly paint the current situation in nice colors, whatever it was.

“Okay, I guess I’m going...” Ez said, clearly trying to sound more prepared and kingly than the hesitation in his voice revealed, “but where’s Callum?” he added, looking back and forth between the stairs and the pinnacle, not hiding his uneasiness anymore.

Worry thumped Rayla’s chest. “I… I guess he’ll come back down soon?” she mumbled, not exactly succeeding in sounding reassuring.

“Can you go check on him, please?” Ezran whimpered, looking at her with his natural puppy eyes.

Rayla was not going to go up there on her own so suddenly. Not even for the best human kid in the world.

“Of course.” she smiled, dying inside a little.

“Thank you.” he hugged her quickly. “I’ll be in the chamber, let me know if anything is wrong.” he tried his best to smile genuinely.

“I’m sure he’s fine!” she smiled at him again, hoping she was right. She let Zym go, so he could follow Ez.

Now it was her against the stairs to the setting of her literal nightmares.

“Ok, one step at the time. Focus on the stairs.” Rayla repeatedly whispered as she put foot after foot on the next step, looking down.

Surprisingly, she was moving faster than expected, as the stairs themselves weren’t the real problem as long as she remained close to the wall. She just needed not to think about the destination and she was doing pretty well at imagining a potential situation where she was scolding Callum for making her worry needlessly. Then Zubeia awoke and the mountain shook.

The slight movements of the stairs threw her off her mental loop and she momentarily freaked out. All the caution she had instantly disappeared as she dashed up the remaining steps, aiming to be on plain ground.

Rayla recognized the decoration on the floor. She had almost reached the pinnacle, just a few more steps and she’d be on it. She took a deep breath and looked up.

All air left her lungs when she saw no one standing there and her body instinctively rushed up the stairs, ignoring the similarities to the last time she had done that.

“Callum!” she almost yelled. She resumed breathing once she saw him sitting near the edge, open sketchbook lying in his lap and an extremely confused expression on his face. “Oh, thank the Moon!” she exhaled in relief as her body relaxed.

“Rayla!” he beamed, eyes and smile wide in amazement as he shut his sketchbook and got up.

“What?” she mumbled, confused by his reaction.

“You got up here! On your own!” he exclaimed, coming closer. His beaming smile morphed into a softer, prouder one.

“... Yeah, I did.” she admitted, mostly to herself, taken aback for a moment. “But that’s because Ezran asked me to. He was worried, you know?” she snapped a little, jerking her thoughts back to the matter at hand and approaching him to distance herself from the border of the pinnacle.

“Uh? For what?” he inquired in confusion, not stepping backwards but leaning ever so slightly away from her.

“You tell me! Ibis rushed down without you and didn’t say anything but ‘Ezran, go to the Queen’, so your brother was worried.” she bursted out, the stress of the situation getting a bit to her. She took a breath. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, just still a bit out of breath.” he sighed as he sat on the floor again. “And weren’t you worried about me?” he smirked as he looked up at her.

“... Maybe.” she sneered, wrinkling her nose. “But seriously, what happened?” she asked as she sat down next to him, eyes focused away from the borders.

“Ibis didn’t say anything at all?” he inquired, gently moving a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Nope, I told you. He went straight to get Janai and then to the Queen, I guess.” she smiled, her ear twitching at the light touch.

“Okay, makes sense.” he shifted in his seat, so he could look at her more easily. “You know we were supposed to get the replies from the elven leaders today? Well, we met a Skywing messenger, a friend of Ibis, at least I think. Poor guy had flown all night to avoid the storm and arrive as early as possible, he was absolutely spent. Ibis offered to relay the message to the Queen so that the guy -Harmas, I think?- could rest a bit before catching up.” he excitedly explained, pointing in the direction of the storm path and then where they had met. He also showed her a very rough sketch of a Skywing elf, clearly unfinished.

“Well, good to know he didn’t attack you right away for, you know...” Rayla smirked, waving her hand in his direction. “And what’s in the message? What was Ibis’ rush for?” she asked, not holding back a frown of worry.

“Nothing bad, actually quite the contrary, I think.” he prefaced. “I mean, apparently lots of Earthblood elves aren’t too happy about the fact two human armies trespassed into Xadia and had a full-on battle involving dark magic right under the Storm Spire, which isn't great, but their leaders agreed to peacefully come to see for themselves that Zym and the Queen are alive and well.”

“That’s it? Then why was he so agitated?” she pressed.

“Well… They’re coming sooner than anticipated, in bigger numbers than expected and I think they're already on their way here.” he replied, not as worried as a human about to encounter dozens of potentially unfriendly elves in the middle of Xadia should be. “So yeah, Ibis kinda rushed back, he even left me behind once we were in sight of the Storm Spire. I tried to catch up, but he's fast and was already gone by the time I landed. You arrived just as sat down to catch my breath and draw.”

“Oh, okay, not ideal, but good.” she sighed in relief, slumping on his shoulder. “Seeing Ibis like that made it seem much worse.”

“Yeah, maybe I should have followed him, sorry.” he lightly chuckled, passing a hand through his hair. “Though it’s gonna be fun once Harmas gets here. You should have seen his face when he got a closer look at me and my wings! He probably thought he was hallucinating!”

“Oh, you’re gonna be a shock for many elves for sure.” she scoffed, sitting straight and poking him in the side.

“Zym too!” he chimed, biting his lips in a weird half-smile.

“Well, yeah, everyone thought he was-”

“No no, because we both shoot lightning!” he paused, grinning and doing the zap hand thing. “Get it?” he prompted when she frowned at him.

Rayla slowly rubbed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I could personally throw you off the cliff for this, but you can fly.” she groaned, then instantly regretted touching the topic at all as her peace of mind cracked, thoughts and memories flooding in. “Sorry, that was-” she began, trying to keep her breaths steady.

Callum’s arm reached around her shoulder before she could finish. “Hey, if you can crack jokes about it, then it means you’re getting over it.” he smiled, although she could clearly hear the uncertain tone in his voice.

“I’m… not sure.” she bit her lip, trying to keep herself from fully panicking right there and then.

“You’re not, but I am. You’ve even walked up here on your own, that has to count for something!” he squeezed her shoulders and grabbed her hand. “You know what? I think you’re ready for the next step!”

Rayla looked at him, wary and still shaken. “Next step?”

“Fly with me!” he enthusiastically exclaimed, getting up and trying help her up by pulling the hand he still hadn't let go of.

She didn’t budge at all, physically feeling her suddenly-heavy body setting roots in the pavement at the simple idea of being up in the air. “No, no, no.” she quaked, trying to pull her hand out of his grip. He stopped right away and sat again next to her.

“Why not?” he asked, clearly bummed about her refusal, but also visibly worried.

“Because you’re no expert at that and...” she gulped, “I’m still afraid.” she mumbled, barely audible.

His arms wrapped around her and she let her head rest on his shoulder, partially hiding her face in his scarf. He was whispering something, but his words were lost on her as her mind wandered.

There was no doubt she still was afraid. Every fiber of her body shrieked in fear just by thinking about it, all in a very similar fashion to how she reacted to water.

However, for the first time since it had happened, she managed to think past the horrible memories originated right there, at the pinnacle. She would never forget Zym’s cries, the terrifying face of the dark mage and the wind whirl of hopelessness as she plummeted to her death, but she felt there was more than that.

Once she let herself process the bad, holding onto Callum as if he was her literal rock, all that was left were the memories of the love she felt once she was saved by him, the gentle brushing and soft crackling of his feathers against her skin once they were safe in each other's arms, the kiss they shared as they rose through the clouds after they had finally put their feelings into three simple words, how her heart almost seemed to burst in exhilarating happiness and love.

Rayla felt a smile tug at her lips and a familiar warmth rise in her, while a quiet realization turned into determination.

The experience had been traumatic to say the least, but she looked for the cause of her fear in the wrong parts of it. She hadn’t been afraid of sacrificing herself, no more than when she had already accepted that possibility the day she had left the Silvergrove for her mission. She hadn’t been afraid of falling from the mountain or heights themselves, no more than when she trained on the high trees she grew surrounded by. She wasn’t afraid of nightmares, no more than what she had to deal with in her life until that point.

Rayla never had someone so dear to her that she could lose, no one she couldn’t see her life without, not after all they had been through together. She had only felt that kind of consuming fear when it came to Callum’s safety, to losing him. And yet, everytime she had always instinctively reacted against that fear, baring her blades towards it as much as towards whoever tried to hurt him, doing everything in her power to fight both. And she had always succeeded.

When she was falling to her doom, she had been completely powerless in front of the reckless risk he had taken for her. The moment that had set in her, it broke the certainty that she would always be the one who could turn the situation around, and the strain of the past weeks finally caught up to her.

And yet, Callum had managed to save not only himself by achieving yet another incredible feat of magic, but both of them. He had stepped in and fought against what she feared, for her. She had felt safe with him even when she was barely holding onto him while up in the air, but fear taking a hold of her only when she had let her insecurities win.

There was no reason to be afraid if he had control where she had none, she knew he could handle that. It was still difficult for her, but she had to remember she wasn’t alone, that they were a team. That he would never let her fall, that he'd always catch her.

Callum was her hero who earned all her trust, and she would confirm she was still the hero he believed her to be. She would not back down when he was offering her a way to prove her fears wrong. She would fly, for him.

Rayla slowly removed herself from the embrace to sit straight and took a deep breath. “Let’s do this.”

Callum stared at her confusedly. “Do what?”

“Flying.” she forced a smile while looking him in the eyes, trying to sound determined.

“But didn’t you just-”

“Yes, but I changed my mind.” she shrugged, getting up. She held her hand out to him and he took it.

“Are you sure?” he asked apprehensively, while she helped him up.

“You said it: it’s the next step.” she smirked, ignoring all her best instincts.

Callum's face lit up almost instantly. “Then get ready to see something _awesome_!” he beamed excitedly as he took a few steps back and put his arms forward. “ _Manus_. _Pluma_. _Volantus_!”

Rayla stood in amazement as the white painted runes on his arms began to glow and brown feathers started growing from his bare shoulders down to the tip of his fingers. He then shook -or better, flapped- his arms wide open, revealing the full span of his wings.

“I’ll never get tired of doing this!” he giggled as they stepped closer to each other. “It’s cool, isn’t it?” he grinned when her hand caressed the feathers on his wrist.

“Yeah, I’ll give you that it’s pretty incredible.” she smiled as she placed her arms around his neck and her forehead touched his. “ _You_ are pretty incredible.” she whispered, close to his lips.

Callum's wings cloaked her torso as he pulled her into an eager kiss. She found herself missing the somewhat surprising strength of his hugs, but his wings were nice in their own way, warmer and slightly ticklish even against her clothed skin, and she wasn't afraid anymore to admit they made her feel protected despite her fears. A shiver ran down her spine.

“Just…” Rayla breathed once their lips separated, “don’t let me fall.”

“You know I won’t.” he smiled, pecking her lips once more. “But it might be better like this.” he grinned, turning around, so she could climb on his back -lucky for him, elves typically weighted less than humans-.

It took them a few uncertain and awkward tries to figure out how she could hold onto him without choking or hindering him, eventually resorting to her keeping a solid grip on his shirt and hoping her legs, secured around his hips, could do most of the job.

“Hold on tight!” he smirked, turning his head slightly once she seemed ready. Under the blush of his cheeks and endless excitement, she saw the slightest hint of uncertainty.

“A-are you sure this is safe?” she stammered, suddenly feeling her heart in her throat and her legs go weak.

“As long as you hold on tight!” he chimed, before powerfully flapping his wings.

* * *

Soren followed Ezran outside of the hall, stretching his arms as far as his armor allowed. The air was crisp and the sun was warm on his face.

“I guess we’ll have company soon then.” he mused, scratching his stubbly chin. “You know, I’m kinda curious to see these Earthbond elves!”

Bait poked his head from behind Ezran’s shoulder, staring at the Crownguard with narrowed eyes and letting out a loud grumble that made the kid laugh.

“Soren, it’s Earth _blood_!” the young King exclaimed, still giggling. “But yes, it’s kinda exciting! I can’t wait for-”

A sudden yelp startled all three of them, but, before Soren could even reach his sword, a winged figure emerged from behind the peak’s crest and darted above them.

It took Soren a few seconds to realize that the figure was, in fact, two figures. Specifically, Callum and, holding onto him for dear life, Rayla.

“Wow, that seems so cool!” Soren exclaimed as the two circled around the Storm Spire and the elf tightened her legs around the Prince's. “Do you think Callum would fly me around when I have to go places, if I ask nicely?" he grinned hopefully, turning towards Ezran.

The kid shrugged, too focused on following the pair as they seemed to loudly disagree on doing some kind of maneuver. "Not sure, you're not his girlfriend.” he grinned when Callum dove suddenly and the elf let out another yelp.

Soren frowned, then waved at the flying duo after they reemerged from the clouds. “Guess I’ll have to become best buddy with a drago-” he stopped, turning towards Ezran. “HIS WHAT?!”

“... Oops.” Ezran’s apologetic smile froze for a millisecond, then turned around with wide eyes. “Wait, how did you NOT know?!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with this final (for real this time) chapter, it's complete!  
> Thank you all for your encouragement and feedback, this was a huge first fic to write, but I'm proud of having finished it!
> 
> Sorry for taking so long with completing it and for not replying to comments on the last few chapters, life has been throwing me curve ball after curve ball and I was often not in a good place, to the point even commenting was out of the question, let alone write more than story notes.  
> Speaking of which, support BLM if you can! Here's a link to resources to give your support: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/
> 
> I will not stop writing, but before I post the first chapter I'll make sure to have a bit of buffer, if not even the whole fic done. Next up is the Amaya/Janai fic which will fill in some "plot" gaps of For You, I'll Fly, then a little fluffy Rayllum sequel once that's complete!  
> Thank you again for your support and see you next time! <3


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